“Did they not tell us he was in this room with Perseus—did he not quit by the window in such haste that he left his cloak—there at your feet?”
His cloak! His cloak that she had clutched to her heart for comfort—this to be cited at evidence against him—
“I say it could not be!” she cried; she put her hands before her face as if fire had suddenly struck her blind and cowered and shrank together.
Gently Jerome Caryl put her into the chair by the desolate hearth.
“We must leave here at once,” he said. “I must send a warning to Berwick and destroy the printing-press and all papers—there is a kingdom hanging on our prudence now.”
She looked at him blankly.
“The Master of Stair,” she muttered. “The Master of Stair.”
She drew herself together in the chair and, half-swooning, dreams mounted to her brain; reality ebbed away; she was conscious of feeling cold and yet when she put her hand to her forehead she seemed to touch fire; she thought the Abbey was about her, the sunlight at her feet, and—he—stood on the bishop’s grave—“call me John,” he said—Sir John Dalrymple, Master of Stair—she repeated the names to herself—it was written in large characters: “Mr. Wedderburn is the Master of Stair”—how they lied! Where was Jerome Caryl?
There were people passing, carrying something—it was the Abbey and a funeral—she was so happy that she could weep for them—death was curious—irrevocable—irrevocable.
It was Perseus they carried past. They came so heavily—so slowly; one of his hands hung out and touched the floor.