"'Tis a matter of life and death."
"And yet this moment you called it a silly trifle," she said, lifting her eyes reproachfully to his flushed face.
Startling truths.
"Death! Do you want to drive me mad?" he cried through his clenching teeth. "I tell you, girl, if your foolish, gossiping tongue should let slip one syllable of what you saw and overheard last night, it would be a hanging matter for your father and for me."
"Lawrence, Lawrence!" gasped the terrified girl; "why? what for?"
"What for?" echoed he with heaving breast "Do you know what this disobedience of yours has done?—undone, I mean. Shall I tell you?"
"Lawrence! what, what?"
"The good of a whole nation. That is what these gentlemen and your father—"
"And you, Lawrence?" interrupted she.
The shadow of a plot.