“All in good time, Frances. There is no more hurry than ever there was; less, indeed, for it seems to me that Cromwell, for some reason, wants to come at this by fraud and not by force. But now that De Courcy’s name is mentioned between us, I ask you what you know against him more than I have told you?” “Against him? I know everything against him. Would that you had killed him. He would sell his soul, if he has one. He robbed my dying father, and on the day of his death, when I was the only one in London who did not know he was executed, De Courcy lured me to his apartments at Whitehall under pretense of leading me to the King that I might plead for my father’s life. There he attempted to entrap me, snapped in my hand the sword which I had clutched from the wall to defend myself, and I struck him twice in the face, and blinded him with his own false blood, and so escaped. Judge, then, my fear when I saw him there at Oxford.” “The truth! The truth! At last the truth!” shouted Armstrong, as if a weight had fallen from his shoulders. “The truth has a ring like honest steel, and cannot be mistaken when once you hear it. He lied to me about you in Oxford, and I called him liar, and would have proven it on him, but that he told me you were in danger. I should have killed the whelp this morning, but that he could not defend himself.” “The truth! Yes, but only part of it. He did not rob you last night.” “Nonsense! He did.” “I robbed you. I stole into your room and robbed you. I carried the original of that document to Cromwell himself, and it is now in his hands. It was the price of my brother’s life. My brother was set on your track by Cromwell, and, being wounded, I took up his task. Do you understand? That was my mission to Oxford. To delude you, to rob you, and I have done it.” “Girl, you are distraught!” “I am not. Every word I tell you is true.” “You are saying that to shield some one.” “Look, William Armstrong! For two hours and more, last night, you held me by the wrist. There is the bracelet with which you presented me,--black proof of the black guilt I confess to you.” She held her hand aloft, and the sleeve fell away from the white and rounded arm, marred only by the dark circles where his fingers had pressed. “Do you say I did that?” “Yes. If still you do not believe me, measure your fingers with the shadow they have cast.” She reached out her hand to him, and he took it in his left, stroking the bruised wrist with his right, but looking into her eyes all the while. “Frances, is it this secret that stood between us?” “Yes.” “Is this _all_ that stood between us?” “All! Is it not enough? All! It is a mountain of sin that bears me to the very ground.” “Why, dear lass, did you not tell me?” “Tell you? It was from you, of all the world, I must conceal it until now.” He laughed very quietly, fondling her hand.