“Since we are agreed so far, let us agree to end it.”
“It is all I ask.”
“Yes, but—alas!—in a different way. Listen now.”
“I will not listen. Let me go.”
“I were your enemy did I do so, for you would know hereafter a sorrow and repentance for which nothing short of death could offer you escape. Richard is under suspicion.”
“Do you hark back to that?” The scorn of her voice was deadly. Had it been herself he desired, surely that tone had quenched all passion in him, or else transformed it into hatred. But Blake was playing for a fortune, for shelter from a debtor's prison.
“It has become known,” he continued, “that Richard was one of the early plotters who paved the way for Monmouth's coming. I think that that, in conjunction with his betrayal of his trust that night at Newlington's, thereby causing the death of some twenty gallant fellows of King James's, will be enough to hang him.”
Her hand clutched at her heart. “What is't you seek?” she cried. It was almost a moan. “What is't you want of me?”
“Yourself,” said he. “I love you, Ruth,” he added, and stepped close up to her.
“O God!” she cried aloud. “Had I a man at hand to kill you for that insult!”