"I have never spoken to him!" she answered, with no suspicion of what was in his thoughts.
In his relief he laughed, remembering now that Monmouth's affairs were too absorbing just at present to leave him room for dalliance.
"But you are standing," said he, and he advanced a chair. "I deplore that I have no better hospitality to offer you. I doubt if I ever shall again. I am told that Albemarle did me the honour to stable his knackers in my hall at Zoyland."
She took the chair he offered her, sinking to it like one physically weary, a thing he was quick to notice. He watched her, his body eager, his soul trammelling it with a steely restraint. "Tell me, now," said he, "in what you need me."
She was silent a moment, pondering, hesitation and confusion seeming to envelop her. A pink flush rose to colour the beautiful pillar of neck and overspread the delicate half-averted face. He watched it, wondering.
"How long," she asked him, her whole intent at present being to delay him and gain time. "How long have you been in Bridgwater?"
"Two hours at most," said he.
"Two hours! And yet you never came to... to me. I heard of your presence, and I feared you might intend to abstain from seeking me."
He almost held his breath while she spoke, caught in amazement. He was standing close beside her chair, his right hand rested upon its tall back.
"Did you so intend?" she asked him.
"I told you even now," he answered with hard-won calm, "that I had made you a sort of promise."
"I... I would not have you keep it," she murmured. She heard his sharply indrawn breath, felt him leaning over her, and was filled with an unaccountable fear.
"Was it to tell me this you came?" he asked her, his voice reduced to a whisper.
"No... yes," she answered, an agony in her mind, which groped for some means to keep him by her side until his danger should be overpast. That much she owed him in honour if in nothing else.
"No--yes?" he echoed, and he had drawn himself erect again. "What is't you mean, Ruth?"
"I mean that it was that, yet not quite only that."
"Ah!" Disappointment vibrated faintly in his clamation. "What else?"
"I would have you abandon Monmouth's following," she told him.
He stared a moment, moved away and round where he could confront her. The flush had now faded from her face. This he observed and the heave of her bosom in its low bodice. He knit his brows, perplexed. Here was surely more than at first might seem.