“Ah! Yours will bring you to ruin—like enough your neck upon the block or into a halter!”
“I’ll risk that. If there’s to be hanging and beheading—which I hope there will not—it needn’t be all on one side. So far, that you are on hasn’t had the advantage in the beheading line, and’s not likely. They who struck off Strafford’s head might some day do the same with the King’s own. And he would deserve it, going on in this way.”
“By Heaven?” cried Reginald, now becoming infuriated, “the King will wear his head, and crown too, long enough to punish every traitor—every base renegade as yourself.”
The angry bitterness of his speech was not all inspired by loyalty to King or throne. Those fair faces above had something to do with it; for the ladies were still there, listening, and he knew it.
Never was Eustace Trevor nearer to drawing sword, not to do it. But it was his kinsman—cousin; how could he shed his blood? That, too, late so freely, generously offered in his defence! Still, to be stigmatised as a “base renegade,” he could not leave such speech unanswered, nor the anger he felt unexpressed.
“If you were not my cousin, Rej, I would kill you!”
He spoke in a low tone, trembling with passion.
“You kill me! Ha-ha! Then try, if you like—if you dare!”
And the King’s officer made a movement as if to unsheath his sword.
“You know I dare. But I won’t. Not here—not now.”