“'Tis a singularly sudden interest in my doings, this,” said he quietly. “What is't you seek of me?” He reached for the hat he had cast upon the table when they had entered. “Tell me briefly. I may stay no longer.”
She rose, her agitation suddenly increasing, afraid that after all he would escape her. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Answer me that, and I will tell you why I came.”
“I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's in His Majesty's company.
“His Majesty's?”
“King Monmouth's,” he explained impatiently. “Come, Ruth. Already I am late.”
“If I were to ask you not to go,” she said slowly, and she held out her hands to him, her glance most piteous—and that was not acting—as she raised it to meet his own, “would you not stay to pleasure me?”
He considered her from under frowning eyes. “Ruth,” he said, and he took her hands, “there is here something that I do not understand. What is't you mean?”
“Promise me that you will not go to Newlington's, and I will tell you.”
“But what has Newlington to do with...? Nay, I am pledged already to go.”
She drew closer to him, her hands upon his shoulders. “Yet if I ask you—I, your wife?” she pleaded, and almost won him to her will.