"Mistress Manners," he said, "I dare not speak to my wife. But … but, for Jesu's sake, get me out of here. I … I cannot bear it…. Topcliffe comes to see me every day…. He … he speaks to me continually of—O Christ! Christ! I cannot bear it!"
He dropped suddenly on to his knees by the table and hid his face.
III
At Babington House Marjorie slept, as was often the custom, in the same room with her maid—a large, low room, hung all round with painted cloths above the low wainscoting.
On the night after the visit to the prison, Janet noticed that her mistress was restless; and that while she would say nothing of what was troubling her, and only bade her go to bed and to sleep, she herself would not go to bed. At last, in sheer weariness, the maid slept.
She awakened later, at what time she did not know, and, in her uneasiness, sat up and looked about her; and there, still before the crucifix, where she had seen her before she slept, kneeled her mistress. She cried out in a loud whisper:
"Come to bed, mistress; come to bed."
And, at the word, Marjorie started; then she rose, turned, and in the twilight of the summer night began to prepare herself for bed, without speaking. Far away across the roofs of Derby came the crowing of a cock to greet the dawn.