He stooped and took her, unresisting, in his arms, though she held her face averted. He carried her impassive up the stairs of that dark, unknown house, and all the way there was passion in his hold and grief in his labouring sighs. She knew that they had entered a warm room, that he had shut the door, had placed her gently on a couch by the fire.
“Jane!” he said.
She uttered a quick, wild cry, and started erect, so that the sheet fell from her shoulders.
“Cover them, in mercy to me,” he said.
She stared at him a moment, then went into a sudden hysteric laugh. It stabbed him to the heart to hear her, for her voice had ever been merry and sweet.
“O!” she cried, “that a woman should be so used by her own husband!”
“Nay,” said he—“but that I might know you still not dead to shame.”
The ripple of her laugh stopped as it had begun.
“Why are you so richly dight, Harry?” she said.
“A lure,” he answered, “to lead thee hither. Who would win a King’s mistress must borrow peacock’s plumes.”