He cast the letters down between them. "Oh, silly!" he answered, "that must be always thinking of my fatigues!" He put his thin hand over hers, that rested on the edge of the table, and gave an excited little laugh. "Thou hast heard this man, Mary.... I think I am pledged to an extraordinary task." CHAPTER VII THE SILENT WOOD Mary answered simply, but with a dreadful force of emotion— "You will go?" He replied to her tone more than to her words. "Nay, I must." He pressed the fingers lying cold under his. "Do thou forgive me, but I must." "Oh, God pity me!" cried Mary. The Prince flushed. "There is no other way to preserve Christendom," he said; "if I do not take this step there is a life’s work wasted, and we are no better than we were in ’72." "I know," she answered hastily. "I know—but—oh, that our duty had lain another way! Yet I will not be weak; if I cannot help I will not hinder." She bit her lip to keep back tears, it seemed, and smiled valiantly. "Tell me all that Mr. Herbert said," she asked. He broke out at that. "These foreigners! That black-avised stalwart thinketh of nothing but his own interest. He cometh here, in his feeble disguise, like a boy playing at a game, and, by Heaven, ’tis the manner they all take it in——" "You must not call them foreigners," said Mary, in a quick distress; "your mother’s people and mine——" The Prince lifted his hand from hers, and let it fall impatiently. "Foreigners to me! Once I may have felt that tie, but now I dislike them when they flatter and when they sneer." He changed abruptly to a tenderer tone. "What had you to say to me?" "Nothing," she answered, "of importance beside this news; only that an old schoolfellow of mine—a meddling Papist—(God forgive me, but I liked her not) sought to sound me to-day, set on by M. D’Avaux, who must guess something—but what is that beside this?" She pointed piteously to the letters. "They have committed themselves now, these gentlemen," remarked William, with a certain grim satisfaction. "They can scarcely go back on their written word, even these weathercocks of Englishmen." "They want you to go—this year?" She could not keep a certain energy of fear from her tone. "Before the parliament is called in the autumn," he said concisely. Mary rose abruptly and crossed to the window. The rustle of her stiff gown made a noticeable sound in the stillness, which was deep and intense—the inner stillness of the house set in the outer stillness of the wood. The glance of the Prince followed her. He stood silent. "There must be difficulties." She spoke without looking round. "Difficulties! Ah yes, and these English do not guess one-half of them." She made no reply. Her head bent and her fingers fumbled at the latch, which she presently undid, and a great breath of cool air, pure, with the perfume of a hundred trees, swept into the room.