carrion thing and arches his strong neck, while the Knight looks straight before him, and cares not, and his steel-clad legs press the great horse into the way, and his steel-gloved hand holds curb and snaffle in a vise. As for the Devil, he slinks behind, an evil beast, but subdued, and following meanly with a sort of mute, animal astonishment in his wide eyes.
And beside Sylvia sat the colonel, quiet, gentle, restful, suggesting just then nothing of desperate determination, and not at all like the grim Knight in feature. Yet the girl felt a kinship between the two, and saw one and the same heroism in the man and in the pictured rider. In her inmost heart she wished that she could have seen the colonel long ago, when he had fought, riding at death without fear. But the thought that it had been so very long ago kept the wish down, below the word-line in her heart's well. Youth clothes its ideals with the spirit of truth and hides the letter out of sight.
But in the picture, Sylvia looked for herself, since it was for a lady that the Knight was riding, and all she could find was the big old house up in the town, on the left of the tallest tower. She was waiting somewhere under the high-gabled roof, with her spinning-wheel or her fine needlework, among her women. Would he ever come? Was there time before the sand in Death's hour-glass should run out?
"I wish the horse would put his fore foot down, and go on!" she said suddenly.
Then she laughed, though a little wearily. How could she tell the colonel that he was the Knight, and that she was waiting in the tall house with the many windows? Perhaps he was never to know, and forever the charger's fore foot would be lifted, ready for the step that was never to fall upon the path.
But Colonel Wimpole did not understand. It was unlike her to wish that an old print should turn into a page from a child's movable picture-book.
"Why do you wish that the horse would go on?" he asked half idly.
"Because the sand will not last, if he waits," said Sylvia, quietly; and as she spoke a third time of the sand in the hour-glass, she felt a little chill at her heart.
"There will always be time," answered the colonel, enigmatically.
"As there will always be air, I suppose; and that will not matter to us, when we are not here to breathe it any more."
"That is true. Nothing will matter very much a hundred years hence."
"But a few years matter much more than a hundred." Her voice was sad.
"What are you thinking of?" asked Colonel Wimpole, changing his position so as to see her face better.
He resented her sadness a little, for he and his sister were doing their best to make her happy. But Sylvia did not answer him. She bent her white forehead to the faint breeze that came through the closed green blinds, and she looked at the etching. The colonel believed that she was thinking of her dead mother, whom she had loved. He hesitated, choosing his words, for he hated preaching, and yet it seemed to him that Sylvia mourned too long.
"I was very fond of your mother, too, my dear," he said gently, after a time. "She was like a real sister to us. I wish I could have gone instead, and left her to you."
"You?" Sylvia's voice startled him; she was suddenly pale, and the old print shook in her hands. "Oh, no!" she cried half passionately. "Not you--not you!"
The colonel was surprised for a moment. Then he was grateful, for he felt that she was very fond of him. He thought of the woman he loved, and that he might have had such a daughter as Sylvia, but with other eyes.
"I am glad you are fond of me," he said. "You are very good to me, and I know I am a tiresome old man."
At that word, one beat of the girl's heart sent resentful blood to her face.
"You are not old at all!" she cried. "And you could not be tiresome if you tried! And I am not good to you, as you call it!"
The girl's young anger made him think of summer lightning, and of the sudden flashing of new steel drawn silently and swiftly from the sheath into the sunshine.
"Goodness may be a matter of opinion, my dear," said he. "But age is a matter of fact. I was fifty-three years old on my last birthday."
"Oh, what do years matter?" Sylvia rose quickly and turned from him, going towards the window.
The colonel watched her perfectly graceful movements. She wore grey, with a small black band at her throat, and the soft light clung to the lovely outline of her figure and to her brown hair. He thought again of the daughter that might have been born to him, and even of a daughter's daughter. It seemed to him that his own years might be a greater matter than Sylvia would admit. Yet, as their descending mists veiled hope's height, he was often glad that there should not be as many more as there had been. He said nothing, and there was a dream in his eyes.
"You are always saying that you are old. Why?" Sylvia's voice came from the window, but she did not turn. "It is not kind," she said, still more softly.
"Not kind?" He did not understand.
"It is not kind to me. It is as though I did not care. Besides, it is not true!"
Just then the conviction had come back to her voice, stronger than ever, strengthening the tone just when it was breaking. She had never spoken to him in this way. He called her.
"Sylvia! Will you come here, my dear?" She came, and he took her fresh young hands. "What is it? Has anything happened? Are you unhappy? Tell me."
At his question the violet eyes slowly filled, and she just bent her head once or twice, as though assenting.
"You are unhappy?" He repeated his question, and again she nodded sadly.
"But happy, too,--often."
There was not room for happiness and sorrow together in her full eyes. The tear fell, and gladness took its place at his touch. But he looked, and remembered other hands, and began to know the truth. Love's unforgotten spirit came, wafting a breath of older days.
He looked, and wondered whom the girl had chosen, and was glad for her happiness while he grew anxious for its life. She was so young that she must have chosen lately and quickly. In a rush of inward questioning his mind ran back through the long journey they had made together, and answers came in many faces of men that glided before him. One of them stopped him and held his thought, as a fleeting memory will. A young officer of her father's flagship, lean, brown, bright-eyed, with a strong mouth and a rare smile. Sylvia had often talked with him, and the boy's bright eyes used to watch her from the distance when he was not beside her. Quiet of speech he was, and resolute, bred in the keen air of a northern sea, of the few from among whom fate may choose the one. That was the man.
The colonel spoke, then, as though he had said much, glad and willing to take the girl's conclusion.
"I know who it is," he said, as if all had been explained. "I am glad, very glad."
His hands pressed hers more tightly, for he was a man of heart, and because his own life had failed strangely, he knew how happy she must be, having all he had not. But the violet eyes grew wide and dark and surprised, and the faint colour came and went.
"Do you really, really know at last?" she asked, very low.
"Yes, dear, I know," he said, for he had the sure conviction out of his sympathy for the child.
"And you are glad? Even as I am?"
"Indeed I am! I love you with all my heart, my dear."
She looked at him a moment longer, and then her sight grew faint, and her face hid itself against his coat.
"Say it! Say it again!" she repeated, and her white fingers closed tightly upon his sleeve. "I have waited so long to hear you say it!"
An uneasy and half-distressed look came to his face instantly, as he looked down at the brown hair.
"What?" he asked. "What have you waited to hear me say?"
"That--the words you said just now." Her face still hidden, she hesitated.
"What did I say?