“With you? Oh, not that! Never with you! Never!”
He beat his hands together in his frenzy of impatience.
“Will you not realize that there is no time to lose? That if you stay here you are lost? Go alone, if you will. Return home at once. But since you must go afoot, and you may presently be pursued, suffer me at least to follow after you, to do what I can to make you safe. Trust me in this ... for your own sake trust me.... In God’s name!”
“Trust you?” she echoed, and almost she seemed to laugh. “You? After this?”
“Aye, after this. Because of this. I may be as vile as you are deeming me; not a doubt I am. But I never could have been vile to you. It may not excuse me to protest that I did not know it was against you that I was acting. But it should make you believe that I am ready to defend you now—now that I know. You must believe me! Can you doubt me in such a matter? Unless I meant honestly by you, why should I be urging you to depart? Come!”
This time he caught her by the wrist, and maintained his hold against her faint attempt to liberate herself. He attempted to draw her after him across the room. A moment she hung back, resisting still.
“For God’s sake!” he implored her madly. “At any moment Buckingham may arrive!”
This time she yielded to a spur that earlier her passion had made her disregard. Between such evils there could be no choice. She looked into his livid, gleaming face, distorted by his anguish and anxiety.
“I ... I can trust you in this? If I trust you ... you will bear me safely home? You swear it?”