She opened her mouth, but he silenced her with his hand.
'No, you shall not go to gaol upon this quarrel!' She sank back into her chair. He surveyed her with a sardonic malice.
'But it is very certain,' he said, 'that had there been there ready a clerk with a warrant and a pen, you had not again seen the light of day until you came to a worse place on a hill.'
Katharine shivered.
'Why, get you gone, and leave me to pray,' she said.
He stretched out towards her a quivering hand.
'Aye, there you be again, simple and brutal!' His jaws grinned beneath his beard. 'I love the air you breathe. I go about to tell a tale in a long way that shall take a long time, so that I may stay with you. You cry: "For pity, for pity, come to the point." I have pity. So you cry, having obtained your desire, "Get ye gone, and let me pray!"'
She said wearily:
'I have had too many men besiege me with their suits.'
He shrugged his great shoulders and cried: