Instinctively I turned thitherward, searching the night vainly
until the lightning flared again and I beheld a cloaked and
hooded figure huddled miserably against the bank of the road,
and, as darkness came, I spoke:

"Woman, doth the gibbet fright you, or is't I? If 'tis the
gibbet go hence, if 'tis I rest assured."

"Who are you?" said a breathless voice.

"One of no more account than the poor thing that danceth aloft in
his chains and for you as harmless."

And now she was beside me, a dark, wind-blown shape, and above
the howling tempest her voice reached me in passionate pleading:

"Sir--sir, will you aid one in sore danger and distress?"

"Yourself?" I questioned.

"Nay--indeed nay," she panted, "'tis Marjorie, my poor, poor
brave Marjorie. They stopped my coach--drunken men. I know not
what came of Gregory and I leapt out and escaped them in the
dark, but Marjorie--they carried her off--there is a light down
the lane yonder. I followed and saw--O sir, you will save
Marjorie--you are a man--"

A hand was upon my ragged sleeve, a hand that gripped and shook
at me in desperate supplication--"You will save her from--from
worse than death? Speak--speak!"