“I haven’t long, Judith,” he said swiftly, kissing her. “I shouldn’t be here at all—But I had to see you! Here—let me look at you. Oh, how pretty you are—prettier even than I remembered!”

She clung to him desperately, thinking that she could never let him go again. “Oh, John! John, darling—how I’ve missed you!”

“It’s wonderful to hear you say that! I’ve been afraid—But it doesn’t matter, does it—that our parents are quarreling? We love each other just the same—”

“Just the same?” she cried, her throat choking with tears of happiness and dread. “Oh, John! We love each other more! I never knew how much I loved you till you were gone and I was afraid that—Oh, this terrible, terrible war! I hate it! When will it end, John? Will it end soon?” She looked up at him like a little girl begging a favour, and her blue eyes were large and wistful and frightened.

“Soon, Judith?”

His face darkened and for several moments he was quiet while she watched him anxiously, fear creeping through her.

“Won’t it be soon, John?”

He slipped one arm about her waist and they started to walk, slowly, toward the river. The sky was blue with great puffs of fleecy clouds, as though a shower had just cleared; the air was full of moisture and the smell of damp earth. Along the banks grew delicate alder and willow trees and white dogwood was in bloom.

“I don’t think it will be over soon, Judith,” he said finally. “It may last a great while longer—perhaps for years.”

Judith stopped, and looked up at him incredulously. At seventeen, six months was an age, one year eternity. She could not and would not face the prospect of years going by in this way, separated.

“For years, John!” she cried. “But it can’t! What will we do? We’ll be old before we even begin to live! John—” Suddenly she grabbed him by the forearms. “Take me with you! We can be married now. Oh, I don’t care how I have to live—” she said quickly as she saw him begin to interrupt. “Other women go with the camp, I know they do, and I can go too! I’m not afraid of anything—I can—”

“Judith, darling—” His voice was pleading, his eyes tender and full of anguish. “We can’t get married now. I wouldn’t do that to you for anything in the world. Of course there are women following the camp—but not women like you, Judith. No, darling—there’s nothing for us to do but wait—It’ll end some day—It can’t go on forever—”

Suddenly everything that had happened this past year seemed real to her and sharp and with permanent meaning. He was going away, soon, this very day—and when would she see him again? Perhaps not for years—perhaps never—Suppose he was killed—She checked herself swiftly at that, not daring even to admit the possibility. There was no use pretending any longer. The War was real. It was going to affect their lives. It had already changed everything she had ever hoped for or believed in—it could still take away her future, deny her the simplest wants and needs—

“But, John!” she cried now, bitter and protesting. “What will happen to us then? What will you do if the King wins? And what will become of me if Parliament wins? Oh, John, I’m scared! How is it going to end?”

John turned his head, his jaw setting. “God, Judith, I don’t know. What do people do with their lives when a war ends? We’ll work it out someway, I suppose.”

Suddenly Judith covered her face with her hands and began to cry, all the loneliness that was past and still to come flooding up within her, bursting out of her control. And John took her into his arms again, trying to soothe and comfort her.

“Don’t cry, Judith darling. I’ll come back to you. Someday we’ll have our home and our family. Someday we’ll have each other—”

“Someday, John!” Her arms caught at him desperately, her face was frightened and her eyes reckless. “Someday! But what if someday never comes!”

An hour later he was gone and Judith rode back to the house, happy and at peace, content as never before in her life. For now—no matter what happened, no matter who won or lost the war—they were sure of each other. Sometimes they might have to be apart, but they could never be really separated again. Life seemed simpler to her, and more complete.

At first the thought of seeing her mother again, of looking her squarely in the face, confused and frightened her. She felt as she had when she was a little girl and Lady Anne had always known —even without seeing her at it—whether she had been into mischief. But after the first few uncomfortable days were safely past Judith let herself settle into the luxury of remembering. Every smile, every kiss and touch, each phrase of love, she brought forth again and again like precious keepsakes, to solace her empty hours, comfort her doubts, banish the dark enclosing fears.

Only a month later news came of a great Royalist victory at Roundway Down and Lord William wrote his wife to expect peace at any time. Judith’s hopes soared with wild optimism, heedless of Lady Anne’s stern warning that neither John Mainwaring nor any member of his family would ever set foot on Rose Lawn again. If only the war would end, ho matter how it ended, they would work out their problems someway. John had said so.

And then she realized that she was pregnant.

For some time she had been noticing strange symptoms, and though she believed at first that it was only some slight indisposition, finally she knew. The shock sent her to bed for several days. She could not eat and grew pale and thinner, and whenever her mother was in the room she lay watching her with sick apprehension, dreading each glance, each sentence, sure that she saw suspicion in her eyes and heard contempt in her voice. She did not dare think what would happen if they should ever find out. For her father’s temper and prejudices were so violent he would surely seek John out and try to kill him. Somehow, before it became noticeable, she must get away—go to John, no matter where he was. She could not give birth to an illegitimate child; it would be a stain upon the honour of her family which nothing could ever erase.

Lord William came back in September, jubilant with tales of Royalist success. “They won’t be able to hold against us another month,” he insisted. And Judith, who had had not a word from John, listened to her father eagerly—hoping to hear at least the mention of his name, some hint that he was alive and unhurt. But if Lord William knew anything about him he did not speak of it before Judith, and her mother was equally uncommunicative. Both of them pretended to be unaware that John Mainwaring existed or had ever existed.

Then she was told that they had selected a husband for her.

He was Edmund Mortimer, Earl of Radclyffe. Judith had met him a year and a half before, when he had paid a visit to Rose Lawn. He was thirty-five years old, not long widowed, and the father of a baby son. She remembered little except that she had not liked him. He was no more than five feet six or seven inches tall, with delicate bones and head too large for his narrow shoulders and thin body. His features were aristocratic, narrow-nosed and tight-lipped, and though his eyes were hard and cold they reflected a trained, austere intelligence. These were not qualities to recommend him to a girl of seventeen whose heart was full of a handsome, virile, gallant young man. And something about the Earl, she did not know what, repelled her. She would not have wanted him for a husband even if she had never seen John Mainwaring.

“I don’t want to get married,” she said, half surprised at her own audacity.

Her father stared at her, his eyes beginning to glitter dangerously, but just as he opened his mouth to speak Lady Anne told her to leave the room, adding that she would talk to her later. Judith’s sulky stubbornness angered and surprised her parents. Nevertheless they went briskly ahead with plans for the wedding, and did not consult her again, for they were convinced that the sooner she was married and began to get John Mainwaring out of her head the better it would be for everyone concerned.

Her wedding-gown, made a year and a half ago for her marriage to John, was taken out of its trunk, brushed and pressed and hung up in her room. It was heavy white satin, embroidered all over with seed pearls. The deep collar and cuffs were cream-coloured lace, and the slit skirt draped up in back over a petticoat of luminous, crusty silver-cloth. Hand-made in France, it was a beautiful and very expensive gown, and at first she had loved it. Now she could not even bring herself to try it on, and passionately told her nurse that she would as soon be fitted for her own shroud.

Sometime later the Earl arrived and Judith, though she had been warned repeatedly to show him all respect and affection, refused to do either. She avoided him whenever she could, spoke to him coldly, and cried in her own room for hours without end. The fourth month of her pregnancy had passed and she was in constant terror of being discovered, though her full skirts would certainly give no hint for several weeks longer. Worry and anxiety had made her thin; she jumped nervously at the slightest unexpected sound and was quiet and moody and easily irritated.

What’s going to happen to me? she would think wildly as she stood by the windows, hoping, praying to see John or some messenger sent by him come riding up over the hill to save her. But no one came. Since June she had not heard from him. She did not even know whether he was alive or dead.

Her relief was intense, if guilty, when—less than a fortnight before the day set for the wedding—news arrived that the Parliamentarians had attacked a great house twenty miles to the southeast, and the Earl rode off with her father.