At the top there was—light! and the passage ended in a window. A great way off, a pine torch was stuck in a wall, a knave in armour sat on the floor beneath it—the heavy breathing was coming up the stairway. She crept on tiptoe across the passage to the curtains beside the casement.
Then a man was within touch of her hand, panting hard, and he stood still as if he were out of breath. His voice called in gasps to the knave at the end of the gallery:
'Ho ... There ... Simon!... Peter!... Hath one passed that way?'
The voice came back:
'No one! The King comes!'
He moved a step down the corridor and, as he was lifting the arras a little way away, she moved to peep through a crack in the curtain.
It was Throckmorton! The distant light glinted along his beard. At the slight movement she made he was agog to listen, so that his ears appeared to be pricked up. He moved swiftly back to cover the stairhead. In the distance, beneath the light, the groom was laying cards upon the floor between his parted legs.
Throckmorton whispered suddenly:
'I can hear thee breathe. Art near! Listen!'
She leant back against the wall and trembled.