“I should be sent away, Ma'am, if I do.”
“Look—listen: in this strait you must be for or against me; you can't be divided. For God's sake be a friend to me now. I may yet be the best friend you ever had. Come, Phœbe, trust me, and I'll never betray you.”
She took the girl's hand. Phœbe did not speak. She looked in her face earnestly for some moments, and then down, and up again.
“I don't mind. I'll do what I can for you, Ma'am; I'll tell you what I know. But if you tell them, Ma'am, it will be awful bad for me, my lady.”
She looked again, very much frightened, in her face, and was silent.
“No one shall ever know but I. Trust me entirely, and I'll never forget it to you.”
“Well, Ma'am, there is two men.”
“Who are they?”
“Two men, please 'm. I knows one on 'em—he was keeper on the ‘Guy o' Warwick,’ please, my lady, when there was a hexecution in the 'ouse. They're both sheriff's men.”
“And what are they doing here?”