'And you, Richard?' she said, interrogatively.
'What would you ask, Dorothy?' returned the youth, taking a step nearer, to which she responded by another backward ere she replied.
'I would know whom you choose to serve—whether God or Satan; whether you are of those who would set at nought the laws of the land——'
'Insist on their fulfilment, they say, by king as well as people' interrupted Richard.
'They would tear their mother in pieces——'
'Their mother!' repeated Richard, bewildered.
'Their mother, the church,' explained Dorothy.
'Oh!' said Richard. 'Nay, they would but cast out of her the wolves in sheep's clothing that devour the lambs.'
The girl was silent. Anger glowed on her forehead and flashed from her grey eyes. She stood one moment, then turned to leave him, but half turned again to say scornfully—
'I must go at once to my mother! I knew not I had left her with such a wolf as master Herbert is like to prove!'