"I will, I will presently," replied Arabella. "Come back in half-an-hour, dear Ida, and I will go with you.--But leave me now."
Ida Mara saw that it was in vain to press her farther at that moment, and leaving her, rambled through the vacant courts, and round the wide wall of the Tower, meeting with few of its inhabitants; till, on her return, in one of the narrow passages, she suddenly found herself face to face with one of the men who had carried her off from Highgate. He had evidently been drinking largely, and she made an effort to pass him at once, hoping that he might not notice her.
He stopped her, however, though not uncivilly, saying, "Ah, pretty lady, is that you? I am glad to see you here; for I once did you some wrong; and I don't intend to do so any more, whatsoever they may say.--You forgive me, pretty lady, don't you?"
The man, though not drunk, was not quite sober, and Ida Mara was somewhat alarmed.
"Oh yes, I forgive you freely," she replied; "but I must go on; for the Lady Arabella expects me."
"Nay, stop a bit," said Weston; "we are old acquaintances, you know. I am Sir Thomas Overbury's servant now; but I shan't be long, I think."
Ida listened eagerly. "Poor man, he is very ill, I hear," she replied.
"Ay, that he is," answered Weston, "but he is a devilish long time about it. He's too cunning to give up life easily; and so he makes a hard struggle against death."
"Who would not?" said Ida Mara, with a shudder, for she put her own interpretation on the man's words. "Pray what is his complaint?"
"Nay, I know not," answered Weston; "a multitude, I believe. He makes nothing but complaints from morning till night. He'll be more at ease when he's gone."