“Why? . . .”

He could not be sure if it were a word, or merely a sigh, deep in her breast, so faintly it reached him.  She had murmured it as if to herself, yet it seemed to hang on a question.  His ear was alert.

“Hush!” he said, speaking low and without glancing towards her, for the eyes of the crowd were on them.  “The faintness is over?”

“Yes.”

“Do not talk at all.  By-and-by we will talk.  Now I am going to ask you a selfish question, and you are just to bend your head for ‘yes’ or ‘no.’  Will the smell of tobacco distress you, or bring the faintness back?  These autumn flies sting abominably here, under the trees.”

She moved her head slowly.  “I do not feel them,” she said after a while.

He glanced at her compassionately before nodding to Manasseh for a light.  “No, poor wretch, I’ll be sworn you do not,” he muttered between the puffs.  “Thank you, Manasseh; and now will you step down to the Inn, order the horses back to stable, and bring George and Harry back with you?  I may require them to break a head or two here, if there should be trouble.  Tell Alexander”—­this was the coachman—­“to have an eye on Master Dicky, and see that he gets his dinner.  The child is on no account to come here, or be told about this.  His papa is detained on business—­you understand?  Yes, and by the way, you may extract a book from the valise—­the Calderon, for choice, or if it come handier, that second volume of Corneille.  Don’t waste time, though, in searching for this or that.  In the stocks I’ve no doubt a book is a book:  the instrument has a reputation for levelling.”

Manasseh departed on his errand, and for a while the Collector paid no heed to his companion.  He and she were now unprotected, at the mercy of the mob if it intended mischief; and the next few minutes would be critical.

He sat immersed apparently in his own thoughts, and by the look on his face these were serious thoughts.  He seemed to see and yet not to see the ring of faces; to be aware of them, yet not concerned with them, no whit afraid and quite as little defiant.  True, he was smoking, but without a trace of affected insouciance or bravado; gravely rather, resting an elbow on his groin and leaning forward with a preoccupied frown.  Two minutes passed in this silence, and he felt the danger ebbing.  Mob insolence ever wants a lead, and—­perhaps because with the return of fine weather the fishing-crews had put to sea early—­this Port Nassau crowd lacked a fugleman.

“Are you here—­because—­of me?”

“Hush, again,” he answered quietly, not turning his head.  “I like you to talk if you feel strong enough; but for the moment it will be better if they do not perceive. . . .  Yes, and no,” he answered her question after a pause.  “I am here to see that you get through this.  You are in pain?”

“Yes; but it is easier.”

“You are afraid of these people?”