“He has gone farther than ye ken—and this assassination—”
Her voice trailed off into silence; she sat upright, gazing in front of her; her hands clasped in her lap; as the coach shook on its way, her hair was flung back from her face and Jerome Caryl’s sword-hilt rattled against the door; this was the only sound, this and the rattle of the wheels; he thought she was going to say no more and was marveling at her containment, when she broke the stillness by leaning over toward him.
“Dinna gang to Kensington.”
Her voice, suppressed, with a note of agony in it, made Jerome Caryl start.
“I can make you rich,” she continued quickly. “We can do anything for you—ask it—anything. Jock can twirl Scotland round his finger. He will give ye any place ye like if ye will be silent.”
A slow flush overspread Caryl’s smooth face. “Why—you can hardly know what you ask,” he said. “It is that I should sanction murder and the murder of a man who spared my life and the lives of all my friends—do you—a woman—wish to see that done?”
She answered desperately:
“I dinna care—if Jock is engaged in the matter—I am Jock’s wife.”
She sat silent a moment, then broke forth again:
“We would pay ye vera weel—consider,” Jerome Caryl laughed.