'You are like to lose all your servants in this quarrel,' he said.
Katharine wrung her hands, and then turned her back upon them and drummed upon the table with her fingers. Udal caught Margot's large hand and fumbled it beneath the furs of his robe: the old knight kept his smiling eyes upon Katharine's back. Her voice came at last:
'Why, I will not have Tom killed upon this occasion into which I brought him.'
Rochford shrugged his shoulders up to his ears.
'Oh marvellous infatuation,' he said.
Katharine spoke, still with her back turned and her shoulders heaving:
'A marvellous infatuation!' she said, her voice coming softly and deeply in her chest. 'Why, after his fashion this man loved me. God help us, what other men have I seen here that would strike a straight blow? Here it is moving in the dark, listening at pierced walls, swearing of false treasons——'
She swept round upon the old man, her face moved, her eyes tender and angry. She stretched out her hand, and her voice was pitiful and urgent.
'Sir! Sir! What counsel do you give me, who are a knight of honour? Would you let a man who lay in the cradle with you go to a shameful death in an errand you had made for him?'
She leaned back upon the table with her eyes upon his face. 'No you would not. How then could you give me such counsel?'