Rose shivered at those last words and drew in her breath. She turned quickly back to Wogan.
'But for me?' she asked. 'What have I to do with Lady Oxford's love-letters, or with his danger?' and her voice softened towards the end of the sentence.
'Why, Lady Oxford, who knew very well Mr. Kelly's trade, betrayed him in revenge for a certain ballad wherein your name was mentioned.'
'Yes,' interrupted Rose, 'Lady Mary told me of the ballad.'
'Well, you heard Mr. Kelly perhaps assure Lady Oxford that he had her brocades in his lodging, and perhaps you remarked her ladyship's confusion.'
'Yes. I guessed what the brocades were.'
'Very well. Mr. Kelly remained with her Ladyship, who informed him that he would be taken outside his door, and his rooms searched. There were papers in his rooms of a kind to bring him into great danger. But there were also Lady Oxford's letters. The story he will tell you is this, that he meant to use Lady Oxford's letters as a weapon by which he might save his papers and so himself; but a complete revolution took place in his thoughts. He suddenly understood that he owed it to you that no woman's name should be smirched by his fault, and that thus he was bound, at the peril of his life, to rescue Lady Oxford's letters, as he did. A strange chance put it into his hands to burn his own papers, and leave Lady Oxford's to be seized, in which case he would have been saved, and she lost. But he saved his honour instead, and his love for you helped him to it. He rescued her Ladyship's letters, his own are in the hands of the Minister.'
Mr. Wogan, who had now secured a most attentive listener, disclosed all that Mr. Kelly had told him of what took place in Ryder Street.
'This is the story he will tell you. And to be sure, he adds a pretty touch to the pretence. For he went whistling to prison and he says that he whistled because he felt as if you were walking by his side.'
'But what if it were no pretence at all?'