"O, you are he!" she exclaimed, and the blood rushed up to her face, overflowing its delicate beauty with rich tints. "You saved our Prince!"
The touch of the small, cool hand in his affected Glenning strangely. It brought recollection--which was bitter--and it made this girl's presence very real--which was sweet.
She spoke again almost at once, in a somewhat calmer voice, though it was plain to see her feelings had not abated.
"My father and I are in your lasting debt. Come into the library. He will want to see you. He was going into town for that purpose later in the afternoon. Peter told us he delivered father's letter safely."
As she was speaking she led the way into the room on the right. Glenning followed, and both sat down.
"I--might have waited for him to come," said John, "but--I thought something might detain him, and an incident has arisen which makes it necessary that I see him at once. Otherwise I would not have forced myself upon you so soon after--last night."
"Doctor Glenning, for I want to speak my thanks with father's. I do not know whether I should apologize or not for appealing to you last night, for I had never seen you until that moment. But I was wild with grief at the thought of my Prince burning to death before my eyes, and when the rest gave back cowardly, and left you alone, it was borne in upon me that you would do it--that you could do it, and were not afraid. Now, when I am calm and sane, I see that I was presuming enormously--almost inhumanly, upon your manhood, for I had no right in the world to speak to you as I did, and I believe I am ashamed of it today, and think I should ask your pardon."
Her words followed each other swiftly, as though the speech was one which she wished to say quickly, before her determination to speak it wavered. The flush which had come to her face at the door had never receded, and still enveloped her features charmingly, as she sat with bent head in the cool semi-gloom of the old library.
Glenning looked on her a moment keenly before he replied. The picture she made might have stirred any man's heart. He knew she was sincere; that sufficed for the time.
"Don't speak of apologies," he answered, in a voice which had grown deeper and more vibrant. "You do not owe me any. I have read of days when men counted it a favor to serve a lady, be she friend or stranger. Let us not think those days are entirely gone--that they are as dead as the people who lived in them. Candidly, and without simulation, I was glad to do what I did for you--gladder still that you felt you might call upon me. That means more than all else, perhaps. And it was not all a duty, believe me; it was a pleasure."