But contending against her determination to be cautious and clever, to keep Rex Morgan’s confidence and his love, was the violent infatuation which made her reckless in spite of herself. She had begged Bruce again to take her with him when he went and again he had refused, nor would any amount of tears and imploring change his mind. She was accustomed to Rex, who could usually be coaxed, and his obdurate refusal filled her with frantic, impotent fury.

“I’ll stow away on your ship then!” she told him one day, half-joking, but thinking nevertheless that if she did there would be nothing he could do about it. She would be there and he couldn’t very well throw her overboard.

“And I’ll send you back again when I find you, no matter how far out we are.” His eyes had a warning glitter as he looked at her. “Privateering’s no game of handy-dandy.”

Amber worried because she knew that soon he would be gone and she would not see him at all—perhaps for years—but she worried even more because now, while he was here, the days were getting away from them one by one and they were able to be together only for a snatched hour or two at a time. She longed to spend whole days and nights with him, uninterrupted by either his obligations or hers. And at last she discovered the solution—a plan so simple and obvious it seemed incredible she had not thought of it weeks ago. They would go away together into the country.

“And what about Captain Morgan?” Bruce wanted to know. “Is he going along too?”

Amber laughed. “Of course he isn’t! Don’t you trouble yourself about Rex. I’ll take care of him, I warrant you. I know just what I’m going to tell him—and he’ll never suspect a thing. Oh, please, Bruce! You will go, won’t you?”

“My dear—I’d like to, of course. But I think you’d be taking a very great risk for a very small reward. Suppose that he—”

But she interrupted him swiftly. “Oh, Bruce, he won’t! I know Rex better than you do—he’ll believe anything I tell ’im!”

He gave her a slow smile. “Darling, men aren’t always as gullible as women think they are.”

He finally agreed, though, to go away with her for five or six days, after he had settled his business. A Spanish merchant-fleet was known to be returning from Peru, heavily laden with gold and silver, and he hoped to intercept it sometime at the end of May, which meant that he must leave London in the middle of the month.

And, as when he had agreed to bring her to London, Amber thought that she had persuaded him. She still did not realize that selfishness and cynicism made him indifferent to what might happen to her. He had warned her, but he did not believe that he either could or should protect her from the risks of living and of her own headstrong temper.

They took the main road down through Surrey toward the sea-coast. As in London it was raining—and had been almost every day for a month and a half—so that they travelled slowly and had to make frequent stops to haul the coach out of mud-bogs, for the roads were now nothing more. But the countryside was beautiful. This was the rich agricultural heart of England and prosperous farms lay spread over the rolling hills; many of them were enclosed by hedges, though that practice was as yet an uncommon one. The cottages and manor-houses were made of cherry-coloured brick and silver oak and the luxuriant gardens were massed with purple-and-white violets, tulips, crimson ramblers.

Amber and Bruce sat side by side, hands lightly clasped, looking out the glass windows and talking softly. As always his presence gave her a sense of finality, a sureness that this was all she wanted from life and that it would last as it was forever.

“It makes me think of home,” she said, gesturing to take in the village through which they were passing. “Marygreen, I mean.”

“ ‘Home’? Does that mean you’d like to go back?”

“Go back—to Marygreen? I should say not! It gives me the vapours to so much as think of it!”

The first night they stopped at a little inn, and since the rain continued they decided to stay there. It was warm and comfortable and friendly and the food was good. The host was a veteran of the Civil Wars, a bluff old fellow who cornered Bruce every time he saw him and went into lengthy reminiscences of Prince Rupert and Marston Moor. They were the only guests there.

But the week which she had expected would pass so slowly seemed to pick up speed as it went and the precious minutes and hours rushed along, slipping out of her hands as she tried to catch at them and drag them back. So soon now it would be over—he would be gone—

“Oh, why does the time go by so fast, just when you want it to go slow!” she cried. “Someday I hope the clock will stand still and never move!”

“Haven’t you learned yet to be careful of what you wish for?”

They spent the days idly, lay long in the mornings, and went to bed early at night. While the rain poured down outside they sat before the fire and played card games, costly-colours, putt, wit-and-reason; invariably he won and, though she thought that she had become very clever, he always seemed to know when she was cheating. If the evenings were nice, as two or three of them were, they bowled on the green beside the inn.

They had brought the baby with them—as well as Nan and Tansy—and Bruce told her that he had arranged with Almsbury to take him from Mrs. Chiverton and put him into the nursery with the Earl’s two sons. Amber was delighted to see how intensely fond he was of the child she had borne him. It encouraged her to think that sooner or later he would give up his roving life, and marry her—or take her to America with him.

Until the last day she kept her resolution not to argue with him, and then she could not resist making one more effort to convert him. “I don’t see why you want to live in America, Bruce,” she said, pouting a little before he had even had time to answer. “What can you like about that country—full of nothing but wild Indians and blackamoors! Why, you said yourself there isn’t a town the size of London in the whole of it. Lord, what can you find to do? Why don’t you come back to England and live when you’re done privateering?”

The rain had stopped and the sun come out hot. They had spread a blanket beneath a beech-tree, heavily laden with long drooping clusters of purple blossoms, and Amber sat cross-legged on it while Bruce lay stretched out on his stomach. As she talked she kept an eye on the baby who had wandered some yards away to watch a duck and several little tawny ducklings swimming on a shallow pond; from his hand trailed a neglected wooden doll tied to a cord. She had just cautioned him not to go too close, but he was absorbed in the ducks and paid her scant attention.

Bruce, with a stalk of green grass between his teeth and his eyes narrowed against the sun, looked up at her and grinned.

“Because, my darling, the life I want for myself and my children doesn’t exist in England any more.”

“Your children! How many bastards have you, pray? Or are you married?” she asked suddenly.

“No, of course not.” He gave a quick gesture as she started to open her mouth. “And let’s not talk about that again.”

“Oh, I wasn’t going to! You have such a damned high opinion of yourself! I don’t have to go begging for a husband, let me tell you!”

“No,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose you do. I’m only surprised that you aren’t married already.”

“If I’m not it’s because I’ve been a silly fool and thought that you’d—Oh, I’m not going to say it! But why don’t you like England? Lord, you could live at Court and have as fine a station as any man in Europe!”

“Perhaps. But the price is too high for my purse.”

“But you’ll be rich as anything—”

“It isn’t money I mean. You don’t know anything about the Court, Amber. You’ve only seen it from the outside. You’ve seen the handsome clothes and the jewels and the fine manners. That isn’t Whitehall. Whitehall’s like a rotten egg. It looks good enough until you break it open—and then it stinks to the heavens—”

She did not believe that and was about to tell him so, when there was a sudden splash and a loud howl from the baby as he tumbled into the pond. Bruce was on his feet at a bound and running, with Amber close behind, to pick his son out of the water. And when the little boy found himself unhurt and safe in his father’s arms all three burst into laughter. Bruce set him up on one shoulder and they started for the inn to get him out of his wet clothes.

It was late the next night when she left Bruce at Almsbury House. A nurse he had already hired came out to get the baby and disappeared with him. But for a moment Bruce stood in the rain beside the opened door of the coach, while Amber struggled with her tears. This time she was determined that he should go away with a pleasant memory of her, but her throat ached painfully and she thought that she would never be able to bear the parting. For hours she had kept herself talking and thinking of other things, but now she could pretend no longer. This was goodbye.

“I’ll see you when you come back, Bruce—” she whispered, for she could not trust her voice.

He stood looking at her, but for a moment did not answer. Then he said, “I’ve put a thousand pound with Shadrac Newbold in your name—you can have it on twenty days’ notice. If you have any trouble with Morgan because of this, that will help take care of you.” He leaned forward quickly, kissed her, and turned to walk away. She watched him go, fading from sight in the wet darkness, and then suddenly she could control herself no longer and she began to cry.

She was still crying when she reached the Blue Balcony. She felt as though she had been away for a great while, it was almost strange to her, and she climbed the stairs slowly. The door, as she tried it, was already unlocked and she went in. Rex was there.