"Yet in your candour, mejuffrouw, you have told me much," he said quietly, "confirmed much that I only vaguely guessed. The Stadtholder's life is in peril and you hold in your feeble little hands the threads of the conspiracy which threatens him ... is that not why you are here, mejuffrouw ... a prisoner, as you say, at the good-will of my employer? I am only guessing, remember, but on your face, meseems that I can read that I do guess aright."
"Then you will do what I ask?" she exclaimed with a happy little gasp of renewed hope.
"That, mejuffrouw, is I fear me impossible," he said quietly.
"Impossible? But—just now...."
"Just now," he rejoined with affected carelessness, "I said, mejuffrouw, that I would on no account escort you to Delft without knowing what your purpose is with the Prince of Orange. Even now I do not know, I merely guessed."
"But," she entreated, "if I do own that you have guessed aright—partly at any rate—if I do tell you that the Stadtholder's life might be imperilled if I did not give him a timely word of warning, if...."
"Even if you told me all that, mejuffrouw," he broke in lightly, "if you did bring your pride down so far as to trust a miserable knave with a secret which he might sell for money on the morrow—even then, I fear me, I could not do what you ask."
"But why not?" she insisted, her voice choking in her throat in the agony of terrible doubt and fear.
"Because the man of whom you spoke just now, the man whom you love, mejuffrouw, has been more far-seeing, more prudent than you or I. He hath put it out of my power to render you this service."
"How?"