'You are considerate, truly,' he answered. 'No doubt, having hired your bully, you wish to make the best of him. But—I put it to you— in asking me to nurse him you overshoot my Christian virtue.'
'I think not,' she corrected him in a cool, level voice. 'That is, if you will consider him for what he is, the messenger of your honour. For the rest, he happens to be no bully but a gentleman— though I confess,' she added, 'this comes to you by purest luck: I had no time to pick or choose. Lastly, I have not hired him; but—'
'But what?' he asked, as she came to a deliberate pause.
'But, if you force me to it, I may try.'
What she meant by this, I, lying between them with closed eyes, could not guess: but I suppose that, meeting her look, he understood.
'You?' he said at length, hoarsely. 'You?' he repeated, and broke
out with a furious oath. 'No, by—, Kate, you can't mean it!
You can't—it's not like you . . . there, take your hand from him, or
I'll slit his throat, there, as he lies!'
But her hand, though it trembled, rested still on my breast, above the wound. 'If you lay hand on him, I go straight to the King; and if you hurt me, I have provided that a letter reaches the King. You are trapped every way, husband; and—and let us have no violence, please, for here comes Pascoe at last with the hot water.'
It had cost me some self-command to keep my eyes closed during this talk. I opened them as a gray-headed servant came bustling in with a steaming pan. For just a second they encountered Lady Glynn's. Perhaps some irregular pulse of the heart—she had not withdrawn her hand—or some catch in my breathing warned her in the act of turning. She gazed down on me as if to ask how much I had heard: but almost on the instant motioned to the old man to come close.
'Have you a sponge?' she asked.
'It is in the pan, my lady.'