"Nay," she cried with sudden passion, "I am set on my course." Then came defiance. "I wouldn't change it. Didn't I tell you once that I might have power with the King?" "Power? What's that to you? What's it to any of us beside love?" "Oh, I don't know anything about your love," she cried fretfully, "but I know what I love--the stir, and the frowns of great ladies, and the courting of great lords. Ah, but why do I talk? Do we reason with a madman?" "If we are touched ever so little with his disease." She turned to me with sparkling eyes; she spoke very softly. "Ah, Simon, you too have a tongue! Can you also lure women? I think you could. But keep it, Simon, keep it for your wife. There's many a maid would gladly take the title, for you're a fine figure, and I think that you know the way to a woman's heart." Standing above me (for I had sunk back in my chair) she caressed my cheek gently with her hand. I was checked, but not beaten. My madness, as she called it (as must not I also call it?), was still in me, hot and surging. Hope was yet alive, for she had shown me tenderness, and once it had seemed as though a passing shadow of remorse had shot across her brightness. Putting out my hands, I took both of hers again, and so looked up in her face, dumbly beseeching her; a smile quivered on her lips as she shook her head at me. "Heaven keeps you for better things," she said. "I'd be the judge of them myself," I cried, and I sought to carry her hands to my lips. "Let me go," she said; "Simon, you must let me go. Nay, you must. So! Sit there, and I'll sit opposite to you." She did as she said, seating herself over against me, although quite close. She looked me in the face. Presently she gave a little sigh. "Won't you leave me now?" she asked with a plaintive smile. I shook my head, but made no other answer. "I'm sorry," she went on softly, "that I came to Hatchstead; I'm sorry that I brought you to London, that I met you in the Lane, that I brought you here to-day. I didn't guess your folly. I've lived with players, and with courtiers, and with--with one other; so I didn't dream of such folly as yours. Yes, I'm sorry." "You can give me joy infinitely greater than any sorrow I've had by you," said I in a low voice. On this she sat silent for a full minute, seeming to study my face. Then she looked to right and left, as though she would fain have escaped. She laughed a little, but grew grave again, saying, "I don't know why I laughed," and sighing heavily. I watched every motion and change in her, waiting for her to speak again. At last she spoke. "You won't be angry with me, Simon?" she asked coaxingly. "Why, no," I answered, wondering. "Nor run quite mad, nor talk of death, nor any horrors?" "I'll hear all you say calmly," I answered.