"She lives still at your country-house?"
"Ay; where else to lodge her? Rotten as it is, it does for that; and that is the only use it hath done me this many a year. There's a cow or two for her maintaining, and some hens. And for company, there's old Jeremy that's half-blind. He can quiet her fears o' nights, when the timbers creak and she thinks it is a ghost walking."
"And what of the house when you are away on the voyage?"
"Troth, all may out then, I care not! Let 'em sell the estate for the debts on it; they'll find themselves losers, I trow. And Mistress Meg will be left in the lurch, poor white-face! As for me, when the ship sails, I shall be quit of that plague."
"Ay, but you'll be quit of this goldsmith's wench, too. Will your 'one sweet hour' or so suffice, think you?"
The faintest smile came into Jerningham's face.
"I will not prophesy," said he, softly. "But, as you well know, when we come to that island, if all goes well, I shall be in some sort a king there."
"Certainly; but what of that, touching this wench?"
"Why, will not the island have room for a queen as well?"