“You are no longer trespassing,” he answered. “In future the freedom of these woods is yours.”
“Do you mean that?” she asked excitedly and then the light faded from her eyes. “I shall remember, Sir Justin, the present you have made me of that freedom. I shall remember it even though – I shall never come here again.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked. “The woods will be waiting for you.”
“And I shall think of them always,” she answered in a soft voice. “I shall remember the deer coming down to drink, the wood pigeons cooing in the trees and the feeling that I was safe – safe from what is waiting for me outside.”
Her voice died away and the Marquis was wise enough not to ask another direct question.
Instead he said,
“You seem to predict a very dark future for yourself. Are you in fact a
