“I will speak to him, myself. Ah! I see your unwillingness; but I have learnt—it would be strange if I had not—to trust nobody with my business. With Prince Charlie so near, there is no saying who is a Jacobite, and who is not. I will see the steward myself.”
Annie knew that this would fail; and so it did. The steward’s dispositions were not improved by the lady’s method of pleading. He told her that Sir Alexander’s loyalty to King George had nothing to do with his pledge
that Lord Carse should never more be troubled by her. He had pledged his honour that she should cause no more disturbance, and no political difficulties would make him forfeit his word. The steward grew dogged during the interview.
Did her friends in Edinburgh know that she was alive? she demanded. “Perhaps so.”
Did they know where she was? “Perhaps so.”
Then, should she be carried somewhere else? “Perhaps so.”
To some wretched, outlandish place, further in the ocean? “Perhaps so.”
Would they murder her rather than yield her up? “Perhaps so.”
The steward’s heart smote him as he said this, but he forgave himself on the plea that the vixen brought it all upon herself. So, when she asked the further question—