e was a
shuffling of several feet.

'I knew not other guests were in the house,' he uttered, and fell
again to kissing her.

'Knew you not an envoy was come from Cleves?' she whispered.

Her head fell back and he supported it with one trembling hand. He
shook like a leaf when her voice rang out:

'_Au secours! Au secours!_'

There was a great jangle, light fell into the dusky room through the
doorhole, and he found himself beneath the eyes of many scullions with
spits, cooks with carving forks, and kitchenmaids with sharpened
distaffs of steel.

'Now I will be wed this night,' she laughed.

He moved to the end of the couch and blinked at her in the strong
light.

'I will be wed this night,' she said again, and rearranged her
head-dress, revealing, as her sleeves fell open, her white, plump
arms.

'Why, no!' he answered irresolutely.

She said in French to her aids:

'Come near him with the spits!'

They moved towards him, a white-clad body with their pointed things
glittering in the light of torches. He sprang behind the great table
against the window and seized the heavy-leaden sandarach. The French
scullions knew, tho' he had no French, that he would cleave one of
their skulls, and they stood, a knot of seven--four men and three
maids--in blue hoods, in the centre of the room.

'By Mars and by Apollo!' he said, 'I was minded to wed with thee if I
could no other way. But now, like Phaeton, I will cast myself from the
window and die, or like the wretches thrown from the rock, called
Tarpeian. I was minded to a folly: now I am minded rather for death.'

'How nobly thy tongue doth wag, husband,' she said, and cried in
French for the rogues to be gone. When the door closed upon the lights
she said in the comfortable gloom: 'I dote upon thy words. My first
was tongue-tied.' She beckoned him to her and folded her arms. 'Let us
discourse upon this matter,' she said comfortably. 'Thus I will put
it: you wed with me or spring from the window.'

'I am even trapped?' he asked.

'So it comes to all foxes that too long seek for capons,' she
answered.

'But consider,' he said. He sat himself by the fireside upon a stool,
being minded to avoid temptation.

'I would have your magistership forget the rogues that be without,'
she said.

'They were a nightmare's tale,' he said.

'Yet forget them not too utterly,' she answered. 'For I am of some
birth. My father had seven horses and never followed the plough.'