'Then get you sent to the King of France, through the channel that you wot of, the message I have given you to convey.' He kept his back to her and spoke as if to the distant door.
'Why must I mull in these matters?' she asked him piteously, 'or why must poor Tom? God help him, he found me bread when you had left me to starve.' It came to her as pitiful that her cousin, swaggering and unconscious, at a great distance, should be undone because these men quarrelled near her. He moved stiffly round again—he was so bolstered over with clothes against the cold.
'It is not you that must meddle here,' he said. 'It is your mistress. Only she will be believed by those you wot of.'
'Speak you yourself,' she said.
He scowled hatefully.
'Who of the French would believe me,' he snarled. He had been so made a tool of by Privy Seal in times past that he had lost all hope of credence.
'If I may come to it, I will do it,' she said suddenly.
After all, it seemed to her, this action might bring about the downfall of Privy Seal—and she desired his downfall. It would be a folly to refuse her aid merely because her uncle was a craven man or Throckmorton a knave. It was a true thing that she was to ask the Lady Mary to say—that if France and Spain should molest England together the Cleves alliance must stand for good—and with it Privy Seal.
'But, a' God's name, let poor Tom be,' she added.
He stood perfectly motionless for a moment, shrugged his shoulders straight up and down, stood motionless for another moment, and then held out his hand. She touched it with her lips.