'God save this room, where all the virtues bide!' she cried out, and drew her overskirt closer to her as she passed near the great, bearded spy.
Katharine turned and faced Throckmorton.
It is even as the maid saith,' she uttered. 'I am too true to mix in plots.'
'Neither will ye give us to death!' Throckmorton faced her back so that she paused for breath, and the pause lasted a full minute.
'Sir,' she said, 'I do give you a fair and a full warning that, if you do plot against Privy Seal, and if knowledge of your plotting cometh to mine ears—though I ask not to know of them—I will tell of your plottings——'
'Oh, before God!' Udal cried out, 'I have suckled you with learned writers; I have carried letters for you; will you give me to die?' and Margot wailed from a deep chest: 'The magister so well hath loved thee. Give him not into die hands of Cur Crummock!—would I had never told thee that they plotted!'
'Fool!' Throckmorton said; 'it is to the King she will go with her tales.' He sat down upon her yellow-wood table and swung one crimson leg before the other, laughing gleefully at Katharine's astonished face.
'Sir,' she said at last; 'it is true that I will go, not to my lord Privy Seal, but to the King.'
Throckmorton held up one of his white hands to the light and, with the other, smoothed down its little finger.
'See you?' he gibed softly at Margot. 'How better I guess this thing, mistress, than thou. For I do know her better.'