Je metz mon filz, mon honneur et ma vie,
Mon pais, mes subjects, mon âme assubjectie
Est tout à luy, et n’ay autre vaulloir
Pour mon object que sans le decevoir
Suivre je veux malgré toute l’envoie
Qu’issir en peult....
Her voice broke here, and with it the thread: she could not continue, but looked from one to another, tears streaming down her cheeks, nodded her head at them, and ‘You know, you know,’ she whimpered, ‘this is the very truth.’ Alas! they could not doubt it.
And then, suddenly, as it were at the parting of a cloud, her soul looked out of her eyes sanely; she came to herself, saw the disturbed faces of her friends, and caught sight of her brother’s among them. She jumped about as quickly as a caught child, and that lightning, sentinel wit of hers sprang upon guard. But for a moment—when she saw Moray there—she betrayed herself. ‘Oh, brother, you startled me!’ she said.
He was careful. ‘Alas! I find you in grief, madam.’
‘Thoughts, brother, thoughts!’