'I have told her—alas! I have told her, and already I repent me that I have told her.'
'Doth she consent?'
'She does. It shall be as you desire.'
'Ha!' Benjamin drew a long breath. 'Said I not, Sweetheart'—he turned to me—'that I would break the head of any who came between us? What? Have I not broken the head of my cousin when I take away his girl? Very well, then. And that to good purpose. Very well, then. It remains to carry out the condition.'
'The condition,' I said, 'I understand to be this. If I become your wife, Benjamin, you knowing full well that I love another man and am already promised to him'——
'Ta—ta—ta!' he said. 'That you are promised to another man matters not one straw. That you love another man I care nothing. What! I promise, Sweetheart, that I will soon make thee forget that other man. And as for loving any other man after marrying me, that, d'ye see, my pretty, will be impossible. Oh! thou shalt be the fondest wife in the Three Kingdoms.'
'Nay: if such a thing cannot move your heart, I say no more. If I marry you, then all our prisoners will be enlarged?'
'I swear'—he used a great round oath, very horrid from the lips of a Christian man—'I swear that, if you marry me, the three—Robin, Humphrey, and Barnaby—shall all save their lives. And as for Sir Christopher and thy father, they also shall be enlarged. Can I say aught in addition?'
I suspected no deceit. I understood, and so did Madam, that this promise meant the full and free forgiveness of all. Yet there was something of mockery in his eyes, which should have made us suspicious. But I, for one, was young and ignorant, and Madam was country-bred and truthful.
'Benjamin,' I cried, falling on my knees before him, 'think what it is you ask! Think what a wicked thing you would have me do!—to break my vows, who am promised to your cousin! And would you leave your grandfather to perish all for a whim about a silly girl? Benjamin, you are playing with us. You cannot—you could not sell the lives—the very lives of your grandfather and your cousins for such a price as this! The play has gone far enough, Benjamin. Tell us that it is over, and that you never meant to be taken seriously, and we will forgive you the anguish you have caused us.'