"That is my intention."
"Then I pray you, good Master Bacon, deliver this message to Master Droop from one Phœbe Wise, an acquaintance of his whom I know well. Tell him he must have all in readiness for flight and must not leave his abode until she come. May I rely on your faithful repetition of this to him?"
"Assuredly. I shall forget no word of the message wherewith I am so honored."
"Tell him that it is a matter of life and death, sir—of life and death!"
She held out her hand. Bacon pressed his lips to the dainty fingers and then, jamming the hard Derby hat as far down over his long locks as possible, he stepped forth once more into the courtyard.
CHAPTER X
HOW THE QUEEN READ HER NEWSPAPER
For Rebecca, left alone in the goldsmiths' city house, the past night and day had been a period of perplexity. She had been saved from any serious anxiety by the arrival of a messenger soon after Phœbe's departure, who had brought her word that her "mistress" was safe in the Peacock Inn, and had left a verbal message commanding her to come with him at once to rejoin her.
This command she naturally refused to comply with, and sent word to the much-puzzled man-servant that she wasn't to be "bossed around" by her younger sister, and that if Phœbe wanted to see her she knew where to find her. This message was delivered to old Mistress Burton, who refrained from repeating it to her step-daughter. For her own ends, she thought it best to keep Mistress Mary from her nurse, whose influence seemed invariably opposed to her own.