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Robert hesitated; he raised his hands, still long and thin, though the rest of his body had thickened. He glanced down at them quickly, staring at them in a puzzled way. Then he put them beneath the folds of his doublet. “Nay, woman,” he said with sudden anger. ‘‘You ask too much. Always now you obscure the Voice of God. Let me be! You’re naught to me! - Hark!” he cried, whirling towards the window. “There are voices outside!”

“Aye - ” said Will, who could see through the shutters a streak of lantern light. “There’s no need to fear, Robert. They can’t harm you.”

But Robert had gone, running down the stairs and out of the door to the cove, while the front passage door opened below and they heard Thomas Lyon’s voice.

“I’ll fetch him back, Bess,” said Will. “He can’t get far.”

“No,” she said with a weary motion of her hand. “Of what use? Let him go. I believe he has sane plans. And he must follow whatever fate it is he thinks is calling him. He can find no rest here.”

She closed her eyes and tears slipped down her cheeks.

The weighty footsteps of her son-in-law stamped up the stairs and an angry voice called out, “Father Feake, Father Feake, what a chase you’ve led us!” Thomas walked into the room, and scanning it quickly, said, “Lisbet
said
he was up here!”

“He is not,” said Will, standing in the centre of the floor.

Thomas, who had been certain of locating Feake at last, rearranged his thoughts with difficulty. He stared at Elizabeth in the bed, and back to Hallet, whereupon he started, and scowled. “What the Devil are
you
doing in here?” Thomas shouted.

Elizabeth’s days of sheltered peace were over.

The next month was one of constant discord. Thomas spared no opportunity to upbraid Elizabeth, especially after they heard that Robert had indeed been sane enough to lay sensible plans for his escape. The servant in the Bishop house had helped him. Robert, having taken nearly a hundred pounds from the lean-to chest, had bribed the maid with a few shillings and she in turn had hired her sweetheart and his rowboat to convey Robert along the coast to Fairfield, where a Boston-bound ship had given him passage. And he had reached Boston. The master of the ship touched at Stamford upon his return, and the story all came out. The Bishops’ maidservant was hauled before the Stamford court, questioned, and severely rebuked. She was also put in the stocks for an hour, but there was nothing else that the Reverend Mr. Bishop, or Thomas Lyon could do about it.

The servant, weeping, averred that poor Mr. Feake’s wits were as clear as anybody’s, and it was a mortal shame to lock him up as her master had done. The ship’s captain agreed, saying the gentleman was quiet and gave no trouble, and had gone straight to Governor Winthrop upon arrival in Boston. This last news incensed Thomas more than anything else, since he had not yet had a reply from Winthrop, and now had little hope of controlling the situation except by reversing himself on the subject of Robert’s sanity, especially in view of the signed transfer of property Will showed him during the violent quarrel which took place in Elizabeth’s bedroom on the evening Robert escaped.

The quarrel would have come to blows had it not been for Elizabeth, and the frightened Joan who clutched at her husband’s arm, and went into a kind of hysteria as she wavered between her mother’s and her husband’s claims.

Will refused to give up the paper, and Thomas finally had to content himself with forbidding him ever to enter the Feake house again.

This order Will obeyed out of consideration for Elizabeth. He stayed on his place at Totomack, keeping himself doggedly occupied with the spring sowing and improvements on his one-room cabin. His only news of Elizabeth during that period came from a visit he made to Anneke, who received him kindly, told him that Elizabeth was nearly well, and had resumed most of her household duties; but Anneke was otherwise starkly discouraging.

“You do her no good here, Villiam,” said Anneke. “You must sell and go away. You vill forget each other in time.”

“Has Bess said that?” Will asked, his jaw tightening.

Anneke shook her head. “Ve do not speak alone. Thomas, Joan, or the children are alvays there, but believe me it is best. She and Thomas vill manage better together some day, if you are not here.”

“Anneke?” said Will violently, “Have you ever really loved anyone? Loved so much that it’s desperate hunger night and day, and calm, sensible advice about forgetting and managing better is as meaningless as the droning of a fly? Have you loved like that with your whole body, heart, and mind?”

Anneke looked a little frightened. “But, vat could you
do?
she said. “You vould not make a whore of my Bess, surely?”

“No,” said Will, his eyes hardening. “But I’ll not give her up either, unless she wishes it. I’ve got to see her. Anneke, will you give her this note?”

She showed distress. Under the snowy fichu Anneke’s bosom heaved, but she backed off, leaving his hand extended in mid-air with the note. “I cannot,” Anneke said. “Leave her alone I Go avay! She has had enough vithout you bothering her - and don’t go to the house either!” she added sternly. “It only makes trouble for her.”

Will went home, sunk in despondency. Anneke’s certainty had shaken him, and surely Bess might somehow have sent word to him in these weeks. Could it be that her love had after all been a transient thing, born of her miserable relationship with Robert and her physical weaknesses? Freed of both now, was she also freed of her need for him? Will reached his home, fed the horse and started sharpening poles for a fence to enclose the barnyard. But his hatchet slipped repeatedly, he swore and gave it up. He began to pace up and down along the path he had made to the water, his unheeding steps crunched on broken oyster shells the Indians had left. He did not feel the soft April sunlight, or notice the first green tips of the early wheat he had experimentally sown on the Tomac camp site. As he paced he tried to reason with himself, forcing himself backward in memory to the attitude he had had towards Elizabeth before the day he found her on Monakewaygo. He rehearsed all the drawbacks she presented. She was older, six, seven years. - he wasn’t sure how much. She had a husband, five children, and a son-in-law. True she had a fair body, charm, and strength of character, but plenty of unencumbered women possessed these. And more. He thought of Lady Alice, Digby’s sister, who had looked very sweetly on him, and made it clear that she might talk her father into a marriage if Will should ask her. Lord Bristol himself had hinted that the times were so troubled, and the levelling forces typified by Cromwell were so much in the ascendancy, that a match with fine yeoman stock, with a man, moreover, who had proved himself of such loyal worth to the Bristols, would not be inconceivable.

I might have had Alice, Will thought. A handsome virgin, an Earl’s daughter, why didn’t I take her? Why not go back now, and see if she is still unwed?

He turned on his heel, angrily kicking a stone out of the way. These were futile questions since his inherent honesty answered them as soon as asked. He hadn’t wanted Lady Alice, and he hadn’t wanted to continue at the beck and call of the Digbys. He did want Elizabeth, without discovering any logic in it. More remarkably, however, he also wanted her happiness above his own, which seemed to produce a painful state of deadlock quite contrary to all pious teaching.

Montaigne might have helped, or George Herbert, but Elizabeth still had his books, unless indeed Thomas Lyon had thrown them into the cove. God blast and damn it all! Will thought, and striding into his house, drank a tankard of beer and flung logs on the fire with which to roast a wild duck for his supper.

Will had slept an hour that night, twisting and tossing on his hay mattress, when he was awakened by a knock on his door. He jumped from bed, naked except for his breeches, and called out, “Who’s there?”

There was a murmur and another knock. He lifted the wooden latch and peered out, expecting to hear that Angell’s cow had jumped the fence again and must be found.

The night was dark and he did not at first recognize the hooded and cloaked figure on his doorstep.

“Can I not come in, Will. . .” whispered Elizabeth. “Don’t you want me?”

“Aye - ” he said on a long breath. “I want thee,”

He pulled her into his room, shut and bolted the door. He took her in his arms and kissed her with such violence that he hurt her, ant) she gasped, though not in protest.

He released her and poked at the fire until it gave light enough to see by. “You’ve made me glad, Bess,” he said coming back to her and taking of? her cloak. “In these weeks of waiting I began to doubt - ”

“Nay, love - ” she said. “How could you doubt? I didn’t. But Thomas has kept constant watch on me, and until the last few days I’ve not had strength to walk so far.”

“Could you not have sent me some message, Hinne-sweet?” He smoothed back her hair and looked down into her face, which was yet thin and pale from her illness, but seemed to him lovelier than he had remembered.

“I nearly did by Hannah, and then I thought it was not right to make her keep a secret. And, too, I had many things to think out myself.”

“And having thought?” he asked, sitting on his bench and pulling her down to his knees, where she rested her cheek against his bare shoulder.

“Why, I came to you,” she said shyly, smiling up at him. “And will stay the night if you wish it. Thomas is in bed with an attack of dysentery, too weak to move. I locked my chamber door, and can slip in again without their knowing.”

“Oh Bess - Bess - ” he said, half laughing, yet with roughness in his throat. “You offer yourself to me like this, so simply, so quietly - ”

“But I love thee,” she said in surprise. “And I need no longer think of Robert.”

He set her on her feet and stood up, walking towards the fire. “Then I must,” he said. “Of Robert and many other factors. You cannot sneak back and forth like this, nor start a shoddy intrigue. Our love is no longer like that, whatever I may once have thought. And
you
are not like that. Soon you would hate yourself and me.”

She flushed, looking down at the floor and twisting her hands. “I should not have come. Your heart has changed. I’ve been a fool.”

“No, Bess,” he said. “Foolish only in one thing. Don’t you see what we must do?”

She shook her head. “Unless you mean to go away.” She lifted her chin and tried to speak without faltering, but the choked-down sob cut her breath.

“You precious little ninny!” he cried. “Have you not thought of divorce - that we may marry?’’

“Divorce ... ?” she repeated in amazement. “I never heard of anyone having a divorce, except King Harry of England, and some duke, I think.”

“Yet now and then, for good and sufficient cause, there
are
divorces granted, particularly in Dutch countries,” Will said. “Your husband’s madness and desertion should certainly be cause.”

“Divorce Robert . . .” she whispered, her mind still caught on this incredible concept. “Aye - he wouldn’t care, would he? He said he wished no more to do with me, or the children.”

“He also handed you over to me, if you remember,” said Will with a dry laugh. “A complaisant husband, but as it happens I ask nothing better.”

She stared at him, her heart began to beat thick and heavy in her chest. “We could marry, you said. You would
wed
me, after?”

“Aye, Bess.” He gave her a rueful smile. “It seems that I’ve on a sudden developed a desire for respectability. I don’t wonder that you gape. It happens that I love thee too much for a hole-and-corner tumbling, and I want thee for my wife.”

She sank down on the bench, still staring at him - his head and big naked shoulders dark against the flickering fire. “Thy wife . . .” she whispered. “Oh, Will, it couldn’t be. I scarce can think, ,I’m afraid to think - God wouldn’t let us, would He?”

“I don’t sec why God should have any objection,” said Will. “I fear I think it more important to find out what Governor Kieft’s opinion will be. Go home now, hinnie. Tomorrow leave the house at seven. Tell any lie you wish. But they can’t forbid you to go out. Walk to the burying ground where I’ll meet you on horseback. Take money in your purse, as I shall. Leave a note for Joan, so that the children may not be upset. We may be gone a day or two.”

“Gone where?” For still she could not believe the possibility of what he proposed.

“To New Amsterdam, you’ll ride pillion with me - ah, don’t weep, my foolish Bess - I never thought you a watery woman. ‘Tis no time to undeceive me now.”

Will had hoped to cover in one day the forty miles of trail between Greenwich and New Amsterdam which was on the southern tip of Manhattan Island; but they had to ford many rivers swollen with spring rains, and the horse, unused to double weight, tired easily.

Nightfall found them still at some distance from Manhattan, and though Will trusted his memory of the old Indian trail by day, he felt it wiser to stop in darkness.

So they finished the loaves of cornbread Elizabeth had smuggled from home under her cloak and slept for a few hours under a great sheltering pine. They slept in each other’s arms, passionless as children, and as content. At dawn Will awoke her by kissing her nose and shifting the arm which had encircled her all night. “Come, slug-abed,” he said. “We’ve much to do!” He yawned and stretched as she sat up. “I’faith,” he said. “ ‘Tis the first time I’ve slept chaste as a stone with a woman. I find it rather sweet, but not something I’d make a practice of.”

“Nor I?” she said, laughing joyously. “Can it be that by tomorrow we’ll be wed - d’you think, Will?”

“Why not?” he answered exultantly. “You’ll beguile Kieft as you did before, and ‘tis easy for him to sign the decree, his Council’ll do as he tells them.”

“Ah - ” she breathed, in utter happiness, which made her want to dance, and sing, to embrace the trees, the rocks, the awakening birds, even the horse which was a singularly ugly roan with a long bony head.

Her joy was dampened a little later as they crossed another river and came upon the charred ruins of several buildings scattered through a field of rank new grass.