"No, but if you need me?" I cried. "Will you not promise to send for me if you need me?"
"Is that your desire? Knowing what you know of me, do you wish to endanger yourself for me?"
"Does not my presence in Bedford to-night prove it?"
"But how may that be? Where can I send?"
"There is a man near St. Paul's Cross who keeps an inn called the Virgin Queen," I made answer. "He was once a servant of my father's. His name is Caleb Bullen. I will speak to him directly I return to London, and if you send a letter to me in care of him it will surely reach me."
I saw that she looked steadily towards me as I spoke, and I thought she hesitated.
"When I need help I will send to you. But stay! I may need protection from my—husband. Will you shield me from him?"
She said this bitterly, and as she spoke my heart became hard. Why should I seek to befriend the wife of another man? Was not her place at his side? Then I remembered the way he spoke to her in the inn at Folkestone, and while I pitied the woman, I felt like hating the man.
"I will help you against all who would harm you," I said.
She grasped my hand convulsively.