Alleyne looked at her in astonishment, for her cheek was flushed, her eyes gleaming, and her whole pose full of eloquence and conviction. Yet in an instant she had changed again to her old expression of merriment leavened with mischief.
“Wilt do what I ask?” said she.
“What is it, lady?”
“Oh, most ungallant clerk! A true knight would never have asked, but would have vowed upon the instant. 'Tis but to bear me out in what I say to my father.”
“In what?”
“In saying, if he ask, that it was south of the Christchurch road that I met you. I shall be shut up with the tire-women else, and have a week of spindle and bodkin, when I would fain be galloping Troubadour up Wilverley Walk, or loosing little Roland at the Vinney Ridge herons.”
“I shall not answer him if he ask.”
“Not answer! But he will have an answer. Nay, but you must not fail me, or it will go ill with me.”
“But, lady,” cried poor Alleyne in great distress, “how can I say that it was to the south of the road when I know well that it was four miles to the north.”
“You will not say it?”