Her face was quite white now.
“Mr. Stewart?” she gasped.
“You call him Stewart,” the runner replied coolly. “I call him Walterson—Walterson the younger. But he has passed by a capful of names. Anyway, he’s wanted for the business in Spa Fields in ’16, and half a dozen things besides!”
The colour returned to Henrietta’s cheeks with a rush. Her fine eyes glowed, her lips parted.
“A conspirator!” she murmured. “A conspirator!” She fondled the word as if it had been “love” or “kisses.” “I suppose, then,” she continued, with a sidelong look at Bishop, “if he were taken he would lose his life?”
“Sure as eggs!”
Henrietta drew a deep breath; and with the same sidelong look:
“He would be beheaded—in the Tower?”
The runner laughed with much enjoyment.
“Lord save your innocent heart, miss,” he said—“no! He would just hang outside Newgate.”