“Well, mistress?”
“May I speak to you alone?”
Her voice was as steady as her glance.
He waved away the attendants, drank a deep draught from the cup at his elbow, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and sat back in his tall chair to hear her.
“Yesterday,” she said, “you made, or seemed to make, me a proposal.”
He looked up at first in surprise, then with a faint smile on his coarse, red mouth. His glance had read her meaning clearly.
“Look you, mistress, here I am lord of life and death. Yet in the case of your husband I yield up that power to you. Say but the word and I sign the order for his gaol delivery at dawn.”
“I have come to say that word,” she informed him.
A moment he looked up at her, his smile broadening, a flush mounting to his cheek-bones. Then he rose and sent his chair crashing behind him to the ground.
“Herrgott!” he grunted; and he gathered her slim, trembling body to his massive gold-laced breast.