"
"I will be with your Honor in five minutes."
He nodded, and strode off across the green to his garden. I turned
to Rolfe. "Will you take her home?" I said briefly. She was so
white and sat so still in her chair that I feared to see her swoon.
But when I spoke to her she answered clearly and steadily enough,
even with a smile, and she would not lean upon Rolfe's arm. "I will
walk alone," she said. "None that see me shall think that I am
stricken down." I watched her move away, Rolfe beside her, and
the Indian following with his noiseless step; then I went to the
Governor's house. Master Jeremy Sparrow had disappeared some
minutes before, I knew not whither.
I found Yeardley in his great room, standing before a fire and
staring down into its hollows. "Captain Percy," he said, as I went
up to him, "I am most heartily sorry for you and for the lady whom
you so ignorantly married."
"I shall not plead ignorance," I told him.
"You married, not the Lady Jocelyn Leigh, but a waiting woman
named Patience Worth. The Lady Jocelyn Leigh, a noble lady, and
a ward of the King, could not marry without the King's consent.
And you, Captain Percy, are but a mere private gentleman, a poor
Virginia adventurer; and my Lord Carnal is - my Lord Carnal. The
Court of High Commission will make short work of this fantastic
marriage.
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