The Heart

"Who goes there?" I called out softly, but I knew well enough. 'Tis

sometimes a stain on a man's manhood, the hatred he can bear to a

woman who is continually between him and his will, and his keen

apprehension of her as a sort of a cat under cover beside his path.

So I knew well enough it was Catherine Cavendish, and indeed I

marvelled that I had gotten thus far without meeting her. She

stepped forward with no more ado when I accosted her, and spoke, but

with great caution.

"What do you, Master Wingfield?" she whispered. "I go on my own

business, an it please you, Madam," I answered something curtly, and

I have since shamed myself with the memory of it, for she was a

woman.

"It pleases me not, nor my grandmother, that one of her household

should go forth on any errand of mystery at such a time as this,

when whispers have reached us of another insurrection," she replied.

"Master Wingfield, I demand to know, in the name of my Grandmother

Cavendish, the purpose of your riding forth in such fashion?"

"And that, Madam, I refuse to tell you," I replied, bowing low. "You

presume too greatly on your privileges," she burst out. "You think

because my grandmother holds you in such strange favour that she

seems to forget, to forget--"

"That I am a convict, Madam," I finished for her, with another low

bow.

"Finish it as you will, Master Wingfield," she said haughtily, "but

you think wrongly that she will countenance treason to the king in

her own household, and 'tis treason that is brewing to-night."

"Madam," I whispered, "if you love your grandmother and value her

safety, you will remain in ignorance of this."

Then she caught me by the arm, with such a nervous ardour that never

would I have known her for the Catherine Cavendish of late years.

"My God, Harry, you shall not go," she whispered. "I say you shall

not! I--I--will go to my grandmother. I will have the militia out.

Harry, I say you shall not go!"

But then my blood was up. "Madam," I said, "go I shall, and if you

acquaint your grandmother, 'twill be to her possible undoing, and

yours and your sister's, since the having one of the rioters in your

own household will lay you open to suspicion. Then besides, your

sister's bringing over of the arms may be traced to her if the

matter be agitated."