Either the cross on his face became redder, or the sudden pallor of his other features made it appear so. Slowly he withdrew his elbows from the table and leaned back in his chair, moistening his lips, gazing on the girl with the intensity of a new-born fear. She sat motionless, returning his look without flinching.
For some moments the room was as silent as if it were deserted. At last he spoke huskily:
“What do you expect to gain by making so absurd a statement?”
The girl rose with a gesture of impatience, walked to the window and back; then to the window again, and unfastened a latch that let free a latticed sash, as if the room stifled her and she wanted air. Then she exclaimed: “Oh, let us have a truce to this fooling; I am tired of it. You say I shall beg on my knees to you, but you have mistaken your own attitude for mine. Why do I make such a statement? Because Cromwell told me in Northampton that if I met difficulty in Oxford, you, his spy, would assist me.”
“Good God!”
“Aye! Good God! You did not think such a man would blab out secrets of death to a woman, but there is this to say on his behalf, that he was merely recommending one spy to another. He thought mutual safety would be their bond of union, and he was right.”
“Then you knew you would meet me in Oxford? Why did you seem so distraught when the event happened? That was acting, I suppose, to fall the easier into the arms of the Scot.”
“I had no need to act to bring that about. I hoped to avoid you, and would have done so but for the chance encounter. And now you see, sir, that my peril is as nothing to yours. My countrymen will not injure me; I know them better than you do, but even if it were otherwise, I have but to bend my strength to the pillars and crush you and myself in the ruins of the falling house,—an enactment, I assure you, that fits my nature better than the part of Delilah into which I am cast.”
“They would not believe one self-convicted.”
“Would not believe me? I dare you to put it to the test. Believe me?” She stood by the window and held up her hand. “I have but to strike open this leaded pane and cry to the officers passing in the street, ‘I am the daughter of Lord Strafford, help me, for here I am caged with a French spy, a creature who has sold King and comrades for Cromwell’s gold.”