Markham shook his head dismally.
Gervase turned a distracted face upon the player.
“This man is concealing something,” he said. “What it is, I do not know. Perhaps you can tell us.”
In spite of the fact that Markham’s presence in the room had taken Shakespeare altogether by surprise, he seemed to realize the situation almost at once. Gervase Heriot’s air of bewilderment and the falconer’s look of pitiful irresolution served to make it clear that the man’s will had failed when it came to the telling of his story.
But it was equally clear to that powerful intelligence that Anne had come very near to divining the grim truth. She was the picture of woe. And her distress could only proceed from one cause.
“You say my father is in peril!” Heedless of the player’s presence her words were addressed to John Markham. “And it is because of me.”
The falconer did not answer. But his white face answered for him.
“Tell me all, John Markham. I must, I will know all.”
In the presence of that instancy of will which now as ever held the falconer in thrall, he could not do less than obey. It was in vain that the player sought to check him.
In a few broken, brief words, the dismal story was told.