"Won't you listen to me, Margaret? You know I love you." "If you were offering me, my lord, the only kind of love which an honourable man can offer, I should still refuse it. Your reputation, character, and person are all equally disagreeable to me, and that you should imagine that there is even the smallest chance of your succeeding, is an insult for which, were I a man, you should pay dearly." "On the contrary, dear Margaret," he replied, in his most silken tones, plainly shifting to more favourable ground, "I fancy that the chance is by no means small." "Your fancy does not interest me," was the cold reply. "Every woman has her price, if I may adapt a phrase of the late Sir Robert's, and I can pay yours. Excuse my frankness, Margaret. It would be unpardonable if we were not alone. Yon cattle-drover hardly counts as audience, I fancy, for he is already as good as strung up as a rebel." After a long silence, so long that I tried to find an explanation of it, she said, "You refer to my father?" There was a quaver in her voice which all her bravery could not suppress. "Exactly, Margaret, to your dear father." "In times like this, no doubt, your conduct in arresting him will pass for legal, but fortunately some evidence will be required, and you have none. The fact is that in your loyal zeal you have acted too soon." "I thought your daughterly instincts would be aroused," he answered, scoffing openly as he saw his advantage. "They have lain dormant longer than I expected. Believe me, Margaret, for my own purposes I have acted in the very nick of time, and you will do well to drop your unfounded hopes of the future. Your father's fate is certain if I act, for I can call a witness--you remember Major Tixall, a beery but insinuating person--whose evidence is enough to hang him fifty times over. Whether or not I produce it depends, as I say, on the depth of your affection for him." "I shall know how to save my father, my lord, when the time comes. Now, perhaps, having played your last card, you will leave me." "My dear Margaret," was the cool reply, "your innocence amazes me. My last card! Not at all, sweet queen. You are my last card." "I? How so?" "You, too, are a rebel, if I choose to say the word, and a dangerous one to boot. So here's your choice: come where love awaits you or go where the gallows awaits you." "And if I could so far forget my nature as to come where love of your sort, the love of a mere brute beast, awaits me, you would forget everything?" "Everything, Margaret." "Your duty to your King included?" "Certainly. There's nothing I will not do, or leave undone, at your behest for your fair sake." "You flatter me, my lord, far above my poor deserts. And now, if your lordship will excuse me,"--she arose at the words, pale and determined as death,--"I will e'en go and give myself up to some responsible officer and acquaint him with your conduct." "He would not believe you, my sweet Margaret."