“You cannot do it,” she cried. “Have you not conquered us? You know that your spies watch and track us day and night; you know that we are now powerless—disarmed—is it needful to have blood? Must you know these names?”
“I guess them now,” he said. “I know the smooth-faced lords who eat our bread and betray us, and by Heaven, this time I will have them exposed!”
“Not lords alone,” she answered, breathing hard, “but many folk throughout the kingdom have signed that paper—all my friends—they are helpless now—helpless. If you put that paper before the Prince you will bring to the block and the gallows thousands, yea, there are more in this than ye wot of—’twill be the bloody Assizes again. Your Prince cannot and will not overlook it; but ’tis in your power to be merciful to burn those papers unread and never know the names.”
She stopped as though she had put her whole energy into her words and it had suddenly gone out like a sinking flame; she put her fingers to her lips and stared at him over them.
“It is a great chance for you,” she said very faintly.
“A chance—?” repeated the Master of Stair.
“Of atonement,” said Delia, and her wild brown eyes flashed such a glance of proud misery that he almost winced.
He was fingering with a lazy hand the wreaths that crowned the faun on the marble beside him; he dropped his glance and again there came over his face that curious expression of contained sullenness and defiance.
Delia waited in the center of the room; she could not look at him; her gaze traveled to the long windows and the cheerless prospect of bare trees without.
“Sir John Dalrymple,” she said at last. “Will you do the merciful thing?”