"Hush, hush, Peggie!" Prue was scarlet to the roots of her hair, and with both her hands over Peggie's mouth, tried to stifle her voice.
"Mercy!" shrieked Peggie, suddenly discovering Robin. "How did you get here? What did you come for?"
"For no evil purpose, my good Mistress Peggie," he replied good-humoredly. "I came as any other visitor and requested a few words in private with Lady Prudence Brooke. By good fortune, I found her here alone, and will now proceed to disclose the object of my visit, which is simply to ask her to take charge of this small packet for me, until I send a messenger for it."
The packet was a compact one, about the size of an ordinary letter, and scarcely thicker, carefully stitched in a piece of white silk, and secured by a seal without any device.
Robin held it out to Prue, but she made no movement to take it.
"Oh! don't be afraid that I would ask you to do anything dangerous," he went on earnestly. "If it concerned myself, I would not dare to trouble you, but this is a sacred trust, which I hold far above my life, and if I were rearrested, which is quite possible, I might not be able to rid myself of it in time to prevent a great disaster. It was for this reason that I took the unwarrantable liberty of calling upon the Viscountess Brooke. This packet concerns the life and fortune of many friends of hers, but no one would think of looking for it in the keeping of the Duchess of Marlborough's favorite."
"Friends of mine?" she exclaimed incredulously. "Then who are you?"
"A poor soldier of fortune," he replied, bowing low as though introducing himself, "who has for a moment crossed your path, and in a few days will return to his natural obscurity and trouble you no more. All he asks is forgiveness for having so signally failed in keeping his part of the marriage contract."
"It is not that," she interrupted, thoroughly abashed, though not less angry than before. "I should, perhaps, be the one to ask pardon for forcing a marriage upon you which must be very irksome now; for, sure, you must be even more embarrassed to find yourself saddled with a wife than I with a husband. Yet, believe me, I am not so bad as I seem. Peggie knows I did not wish you harm, but oh! I wish I had never seen you. Why did you attack us on Bleakmoor, and why, oh! why did you let yourself be caught and put in prison—by Sir Geoffrey, of all men! Even the devil could not have put such an idea in my head, about a highwayman I had never seen or heard of—"
Poor Robin turned so pale while Prue poured out these lamentations, that Peggie took compassion on him. "Out upon you, Cousin, for a railing shrew! If you must needs blame somebody, let it be me, for if I had not persuaded you to run away from Yorkshire, Captain Freemantle would not have kissed—I mean waylaid you—and if I had refused to carry your message to Newgate, he would have been spared a scolding wife, and God he knows, his state would have been the more gracious—if I had not meddled in things I had better have left alone."