"Then give me a reason," he said, apparently relieved by her unmistakable honesty. "Give me the real reason, for I see this is something more than a mere fine lady’s caprice." Margaret felt a little natural embarrassment—the man was so different from what she had expected, that the little plans she had devised on her way to the prison, did not fit into the circumstances. "In truth Prue—I mean the Lady Prudence—is deeply in debt and much harassed by her creditors, who threaten her with the Fleet, and I know not what beside," she blurted out. "Now, if she were your wife, her debts would be your debts, and as you, alack, must die on Monday, no one can make your widow pay your debts!" "So ’tis my _widow_ the Lady Prudence desires to be; not my wife!" said Robin, with a bitter smile. [Illustration: "So ’tis my widow she desires to be!"] "What difference does that make?" cried Margaret, greatly relieved at having got over the worst of her mission. "An’ if you think so much of a kiss, I’ll warrant my lady will not refuse one to her _husband_." "Aye, such a kiss as I snatched from her on Bleakmoor, with lips denied and cheek averted. Or such a kiss as she might leave on the face of a dead stranger; as cold as the corpse itself." "’Twill be your own fault if you get nothing better than that," cried Peggie, with a glance that had something of challenge in it. "On Bleakmoor, Lady Prudence had not seen your face; how could she tell you were not some blackavised desperado? There is not a handsome young gallant behind every robber’s mask." Robin burst out laughing. "Thanks, sweetheart!" he cried. "I trust my bride-elect has as kind a disposition as her messenger. Yet what does it matter to me? "’Be she meeker, kinder than Turtle-dove or pelican; If she be not so to me, What care I how kind she be?’" His rich voice filled the squalid cell with burst of rollicking melody. "If she be a very Xantippe, I shall not suffer from her temper," he went on. "And, by the way, I do not yet know the name of the lady who has honored me by the offer of her hand—in widowhood." "That I can not tell you, until I know your intentions," said Margaret. "First, will you marry her?" "Will I marry her? Surely, she is not accustomed to sue in vain for men’s hearts and hands! They must fall under her feet—as I do—when she but glances at them. Aye, I will marry her, though death himself ties the nuptial knot." "That is settled, then—" Peggie was beginning philosophically.