ve lasted a few minutes. For when my senses came
back some one had removed my jack-boots and stockings, and a hand had
opened my shirt wide at the breast and found the wound. The hand was
Lady Glynn's; and on the other side of me stood her husband with a
goblet of wine, some of which he had managed to coax down my throat.

The wine doubtless had revived me, yet not so that I noted all this
at once or distinctly. For the while I lay back with closed eyes,
and heard--as it were in a dream--my host and hostess talking
together.

'A scratch, as you see,' said Lady Glynn. 'There is no need to send
for a surgeon--who belike would only take blood from him: and he has
lost enough already. A few hours' rest--if, when I have bathed the
wound, you and Pascoe will carry him upstairs--'

'You are considerate, truly,' he answered. 'No doubt, having hired
your bully, you wish to make the best of him. But--I put it to you--
in asking _me_ to nurse him you overshoot my Christian virtue.'

'I think not,' she corrected him in a cool, level voice. 'That is,
if you will consider him for what he is, the messenger of your
honour. For the rest, he happens to be no bully but a gentleman--
though I confess,' she added, 'this comes to you by purest luck: I
had no time to pick or choose. Lastly, I have not hired him; but--'

'But what?' he asked, as she came to a deliberate pause.

'But, if you force me to it, I may try.'

What she meant by this, I, lying between them with closed eyes, could
not guess: but I suppose that, meeting her look, he understood.

'You?' he said at length, hoarsely. 'You?' he repeated, and broke
out with a furious oath. 'No, by--, Kate, you can't mean it!
You can't--it's not like you . . . there, take your hand from him, or
I'll slit his throat, there, as he lies!'

But her hand, though it trembled, rested still on my breast, above
the wound. 'If you lay hand on him, I go straight to the King; and
if you hurt me, I have provided that a letter reaches the King.
You are trapped every way, husband; and--and let us have no violence,
please, for here comes Pascoe at last with the hot water.'

It had cost me some self-command to keep my eyes closed during this
talk. I opened them as a gray-headed servant came bustling in with a
steaming pan. For just a second they encountered Lady Glynn's.
Perhaps some irregular pulse of the heart--she had not withdrawn her
hand--or some catch in my breathing warned her