She looked about her wildly, passionately, and I saw that she was at her wits' end what to do, or how to escape him. But she was a woman. When she next spoke there was a marvelous change in her. Her face had grown soft, her voice low. "Philip," she said gently, "the purse was light. I will give you more. I will give you treble the amount within a few weeks, and I will thank you on my knees, and my husband shall be such a friend to you as you have never dreamed of, if you will only go home and be silent. Only that--or, better still, walk the streets an hour, and then report that you lost sight of us. Think, man, think!" she cried with energy--"the times may change. A little more, and Wyatt had been master of London last year. Now the people are fuller of discontent than ever, and these burnings and torturings, these Spaniards in the streets--England will not endure them long. The times will change. Let us go, and you will have a friend--when most you need one." He shook his head sullenly. "I dare not do it," he said. And somehow I got the idea that he was telling the truth, and that it was not the man's stubborn nature only that withstood the bribe and the plea. He spoke as if he were repeating a lesson and the master were present. When she saw that she could not move him, the anger, which I think came more naturally to her, broke out afresh. "You will not, you hound!" she cried. "Will neither threats nor promises move you?" "Neither," he answered doggedly; "I have my orders." So far, I had remained a quiet listener, standing in the mouth of the lane which opened upon the court where they were. The women had taken no notice of me; either because they did not see me, or because, seeing me, they thought that I was a hanger-on of the man before them. And he, having his back to me, and his eyes on them, could not see me. It was a surprise to him--a very great surprise, I think--when I took three steps forward, and gripped him by the scruff of his neck. "You have your orders, have you?" I muttered in his ear, as I shook him to and fro, while the taller woman started back and the younger uttered a cry of alarm at my sudden appearance. "Well, you will not obey them. Do you hear? Your employer may go hang! You will do just what these ladies please to ask of you." He struggled an instant; but he was an undersized man, and he could not loosen the hold which I had secured at my leisure. Then I noticed his hand going to his girdle in a suspicious way. "Stop that!" I said, flashing before his eyes a short, broad blade, which had cut many a deer's throat in Old Arden Forest. "You had better keep quiet, or it will be the worse for you! Now, mistress," I continued, "you can dispose of this little man as you please." "Who are you?" she said, after a pause; during which she had stared at me in open astonishment. No doubt I was a wild-looking figure.