Again she sought to speak. This time words came; at first few and fitful, but warm from a heart all broken with pity. “They will kill you on Tuesday?” she said.
The horror that ran like ice in her veins thrilled in her voice.
“Yes, mistress. The Queen has signed the warrant. And I have done as little to deserve death as this fair April morning that I cannot bear to lose. But no matter. I have had three-and-twenty years of this golden life, so I have no ground of complaint.”
His courage spoke to her like a noble action.
“For why will they kill you?” Her heart was choking her.
“They say I was concerned with Money the Papist in the Woodgate House plot against the Queen’s life. Two subtle knaves have sworn it, but as I desire to go to heaven I am an entirely innocent man.”
She never doubted him. It was impossible to doubt such eyes, such a voice, such a noble bearing.
“I know not Money nor Woodgate House, and so far from desiring the life of the Queen I am the faithfullest if I am also the least of her Majesty’s servants.”
“Oh, it must not be!” she cried in a kind of passion.
“There is no means to prevent it,” said the young man. “The judges would not hear my book oath. But I think my peace is made with God. I am already composed for the scaffold, as I hope and believe, although it is bitterly sore to me to leave a world such as this. Yet if I complain I shall be unworthy of my twenty-three years of glorious life. But tell me, mistress, of your own case. What have you done that they should use you so cruelly? It cuts me to the soul to see you like this.”