“Madam Howard,” he answered, in a lofty tone of aggrievement, “the door is on the latch: the latch is at your hand to be found for a little fumbling: get you gone if you will not trust me.”
“Aye: you have cutthroats without,” Katharine said. She prayed in silence to Mary and the saints to take her into the kingdom of heaven with a short agony here below. Nevertheless, she could not believe that she was to die: for being still young, though death was always round her, she believed herself born to be immortal.
The sweat was cold upon her face; but Throckmorton was upbraiding her in a lofty nasal voice.
“I am an honourable knight,” he cried, in his affected and shocked tones. “If I have undone men, it was for love of the republic. I have nipped many treasons in the bud. The land is safe for a true man, because of my work.”
“You are a werewolf,” she shuddered; “you eat your brother.”
“Why, enough of this talk,” he answered. “I offer you a service, will you take it? I am the son of a gentleman: I love wisdom for that she alone is good. Virtue I love for virtue’s sake, and I serve my King. What more goeth to the making of a proper man? You cannot tell me.”
His voice changed suddenly:
“If you do hate a villain, now is the time to prove it. Would you have him down? Then tell your gossip Winchester that the time approaches to strike, and that I am ready to serve him. I have done some good work for the King’s Highness through Privy Seal. But my nose is a good one. I begin to smell out that Privy Seal worketh treasonably.”
“You are a mad fool to think to trick me,” Katharine said. “Neither you nor I, nor any man, believes that Privy Seal would work a treason. You would trick me into some foolish utterances. It needed not a cellar in a cutthroat’s gully for that.”
“Madam Spitfire,” his voice answered, “you are a true woman; I a true man. We may walk well together. Before the Most High God I wish you no ill.”
“Then let me go,” she cried. “Tell me your lies some other where.”
“The latch is near your hand still,” he said. “But I will speak to you no other where. It is only here in the abode of murder and evil men that in these evil times a man may speak his mind and fear no listener.”
She felt tremulously for the latch; it gave, and its rattling set her heart on the jump. When she pulled the door ajar she heard voices in the distant street. It rushed through her mind that he was set neither on murder nor unspeakable things. Or, indeed, he had cutthroats waiting to brain her on the top step. She said tremulously:
“Tell me what you will with me in haste!”
“Why, I have bidden your barge fellows wait for you,” he answered. “Till cockcrow if need were. They shall not leave you. They fear me too much. Shut the door again, for you dread me no more.”
Her knees felt suddenly limp and she clung to the latch for support; she believed that Mary had turned the heart of this villain. He repeated that he smelt treason working in the mind of an evil man, and that he would have her tell the Bishop of Winchester.
“I did bring you here, for it is the quickest way. I came to you for I saw that you were neither craven nor fool: nor high placed so that it would be dangerous to be seen talking with you later, when you understood my good will. And I am drawn towards you since you come from near my home.”
Katharine said hurriedly, between her prayers:
“What will you of me? No man cometh to a woman without seeking something from her.”
“Why, I would have you look favourably upon me,” he answered. “I am a goodly man.”
“I am meat for your masters,” she answered with bitter contempt. “You have the blood of my kin on your hands.”
He sighed, half mockingly.
“If you will not give me your favours,” he said in a low, laughing voice, “I would have you remember me according as my aid is of advantage to you.”
“God help you,” she said; “I believe now that you have it in mind to betray your master.”
“I am a man that can be very helpful,” he answered, with his laughing assurance that had always in it the ring of a sneer. “Tell Bishop Gardiner again, that the hour approaches to strike if these cowards will ever strike.”
Katharine felt her pulses beat more slowly.
“Sir,” she said, “I tell you very plainly that I will not work for the advancement of the Bishop of Winchester. He turned me loose upon the street tonight after I had served him, with neither guard to my feet nor bit to my mouth. If my side goes up, he may go with it, but I love him not.”
“Why, then, devise with the Duke of Norfolk,” he answered after a pause. “Gardiner is a black rogue and your uncle a yellow craven; but bid them join hands till the time comes for them to cut each other’s throats.”
“You are a foul dog to talk thus of noblemen,” she said.
He answered:
“Oh, la! You have little to thank your uncle for. What do you want? Will you play for your own hand? Or will you partner those two against the other?”
“I will never partner with a spy and a villain,” she cried hotly.
He cried lightly:
“Ohé, Goosetherumfoodle! You will say differently before long. If you will fight in a fight you must have tools. Now you have none, and your situation is very parlous.”
“I stand on my legs, and no man can touch me,” she
