“No whips, Stephen, and all those things. I have heard—”
“Tush, my love, am I a fool?”
“But—”
He opened his arms to her, with an impulse of tenderness and strong appeal.
“Now, sweetheart, trust me. We have been too much to each other, you and I. Look at me, Nan; what I am I am because you are what you are. We are on the edge of a cliff. Don’t tell me that I must drag you over.”
He played to the woman in her, yet not without real feeling. She rose to him, and for a moment he had her in his arms.
“There. You understand, Nan, why I want to live. It is for your sake as well as mine, though I shall not see fifty again. We cannot help ourselves. And I tell you the girl is mad. I have said so to others before it came to this.”
My lord put her gently out of his arms, and led her with some majesty back to the window-seat.
“You must know, Nan, that this will be de prerogativa regis—that is to say, it will be the chancellor’s affair, and he is an easy man to manage. As to a private inquiry, we can probably slip by it—with Christian discretion. The point is—that the unfortunate subject is confined in custody under the care of her nearest friends or kinsfolk.”
Anne Purcell began to understand.