“That is my affair, Mistress Atherton. What is your business with me?”
She came a step nearer, and leant her left hand on his table. He could see those steady eyes on his face; she looked terribly strong and controlled.
“Indeed you must tell me, Mr. Torridon. I am come here to do something. I do not know what. What are those papers?”
He turned and dropped them on to the chair behind him.
“I tell you again, I do not know what you mean.”
“It is useless,” she said. “Have they been to you yet? What do you mean to do about my Lord? You know he is in the Tower?”
“I suppose so,” said Ralph, “but my counsel is my own.”
“Mr. Torridon, let us have an end of this. I know well that you must have many secrets against my lord—”
“I tell you that what I know is nothing. I have not a hundredth part of his papers.”
He felt himself desperate and bewildered, like a man being pushed to the edge of a precipice, step by step. But those black eyes held and compelled him on. He scarcely knew what he was saying.