"You mean you will help us?"
"And myself. Am I not involved now? We'll get him away. He will have to leave the country. I can get him to France. He shall go tonight."
"You mean you will do this ... ?"
"It is necessary, daughter. I must do it for you ... for him ... and for myself."
I went to the Devil's Tower. Kirkwell rushed to me and embraced me, as he always did.
He had no idea then of the great danger he had been in.
"Kirkwell," I said, "I have to talk to you. This is very important. The King's men are looking for you. They have been here today. My father knows you are here. He has held them off. But he says that you are not safe here any longer and you must leave. He is arranging it. He is going to get you to France, where you will have to stay until it is safe for you to return to England."
Kirkwell was staring at me.
"Your father ... But he would be on the side of the King."
"We have to forget all that, Kirkwell. You are his neighbor, whom he has known all your life. How could he let you fall into the hands of that cruel judge? He is right, Kirkwell. You must get out. He says these men may come back, and if they found you, on my father's land, he too would be in danger."
"He's right," said Kirkwell. "I must go."
"He is arranging it all. You will get to the coast, where he will have a boat waiting to take you to France. Oh, Kirk, it is terrible that you must go away, but it is for the best. It is the only thing that can be done."
He put his arms about me, and held me close to him.
"Not to see you, Kate. Though every time you come I am afraid for you. But not to see you ..."
"You will be safe. It will be settled in time. You will be back. This terror cannot go on."
"I will be marked, though, as the King's enemy."
"That will surely be forgotten."
"You say they have come here, looking for me?"
"That was what my father said."
"It is noble of him to help ... But of course there may be some risk to him if it were known that I was given shelter on his land."
"Kirk, you have to go. It is the only way."
"And leave you ..."
I nodded. "It will not be long, I am sure."
"And when I come back?"
"I shall be waiting for you."
"And those doubts?"
"They are not there any more."
"So, it has taken this?"
"Yes, it has. Oh, I was foolish. I don't think I had grown up. Perhaps it takes a tragedy like this to make us understand ourselves. I have lost Luke. I know what it means now to have someone you love taken from you. If I lost you too, well. Kirk, I believe I should never be happy again."
"So," he said sadly, "there is something good in this. And now I am hearing it when I have to leave you."
"Let us look to the future," I said.
"Because the present is too sad to contemplate."
"Kirk, Kirk," I said. "You are coming back. Then we are going to be married. We shall be happy then, I know it, Kirk."
"You do mean this? You do believe it?"
"I must. I could never be happy if it were not so."
For a few moments we were silent and I knew that he was pushing aside everything that stood in our way—just as I was. We were letting our dream of future happiness envelop us and were forcing ourselves to believe in it. It was the only way to help us through the days ahead.
That night, as soon as darkness descended, my father, with Kirk and James, rode to the coast.
I waited for their return, which was not until the next morning.
My father told me then that all had gone according to plan. Kirkwell had got away safely to France.
My father had given him letters to friends of his and what he would need until he could fend for himself.
He would be safe there until the Monmouth rebellion was forgotten and therefore his part in it would be of no more interest.
Two days later the King's men came to the house again. They then searched the grounds and discovered the Devil's Tower, but it was of no significance. Kirkwell was safe across the sea.
The Return
The weeks passed into months. Winter came, and then it was summer. All that time I hoped for news of Kirkwell, but none came.
I was with Christobel almost every day. Frequently we talked of Kirkwell and he was always in our thoughts.
Life was uneasy in England, as Kirkwell had known it would be under Catholic James, who was showing clearly now his determination to take the country back to Rome, while the majority of the people were determined not to go.
Christobel's baby was the main source of delight to us all at that time. Christobel could not be entirely unhappy, however anxious she was about her brother, while she had her little son. And, of course, James was excessively proud of the boy.
Life at Rosslyn Manor had changed a good deal. My father was closer to me than he had ever been before, but he still persisted in his eagerness for me to marry Sebastian and so bring about the complete fulfillment of his plans.
I could never forget that it was his actions which had saved Kirkwell's life and that he had done that for me, although, if he had done nothing, no one could have blamed him. If he had not acted as he had, for me, and Kirkwell had fallen into the hands of the King's men, death would surely have been his fate, and in those circumstances I should surely be more likely to turn to Sebastian.
Sometimes I wondered if my father regretted his rash actions, for he was growing impatient.
"It is very probable that you will never see Kirkwell Carew again," he said. "It would be unsafe for him to return. Trouble could break out at any time, and then you would see prompt action taken against those who have shown themselves to be the King's enemies."
I knew that he was right, but this separation from Kirkwell was heartbreaking. I could have borne it better if I had known what was happening to him.
I wondered if he would try to get a message through to me.
"He would be rash to try that," my father pointed out. "If the letter went astray and passed into certain hands, you would be marked as the friend of a traitor."
"He was no traitor."
"Not to his country, perhaps, but he would be considered so to James. No, he would never involve you, for that is what it could mean."
Lady Rosslyn's attitude towards me had changed since Luke had saved her life during the fire.
Messages from her came to me by way of Margaret Galloway. I was invited to visit Lady Rosslyn, which I did quite often and we were becoming good friends. Although her voice had not fully returned and speaking was very difficult for her, she could hear well enough and understood perfectly, and we devised a means of communication by signs from her hands, which had not been impaired since her seizure.
I used to tell her about London life and the theater, which seemed to interest her.
Two years passed in this way. It was odd, for the days seemed endless, one very much like another, and the time seemed to slip by.
The King was having trouble with the bishops. There was talk of William of Orange having his eye on the throne. He was married to James's daughter Mary, who was heir to the throne until James had a son; and William was also in line to the throne, his mother having been the eldest daughter of Charles I. Intrigue was rife and my father told me that many powerful men were making their way to The Hague and were showing quite clearly their support for William, because they realized that there would never be harmony in the country while James was on the throne.