Upon my entrance, she dropped his hands and turned quickly toward me with a frightened look, but was reassured upon seeing who it was.  Brandon mechanically walked away from her and seated himself on a stool.  Mary, as mechanically, moved to his side and placed her hand on his shoulder.  Turning her face toward me, she said:  “Sir Edwin, I know you will forgive me when I tell you that we have a great deal to say and wish to be alone.”

I was about to go when Brandon stopped me.

“No, no; Caskoden, please stay; it would not do.  It would be bad enough, God knows, if the princess should be found here with both of us; but, with me alone, I should be dead before morning.  There is danger enough as it is, for they will watch us.”

Mary knew he was right, but she could not resist a vicious little glance toward me, who was in no way to blame.

Presently we all moved into the window-way, where Brandon and Mary sat upon the great cloak and I on a camp-stool in front of them, completely filling up the little passage.

“I can bear this no longer,” exclaimed Mary.  “I will go to my brother to-night and tell him all; I will tell him how I suffer, and that I shall die if you are allowed to go away and leave me forever.  He loves me, and I can do anything with him when I try.  I know I can obtain his consent to our—­our—­marriage.  He cannot know how I suffer, else he would not treat me so.  I will let him see—­I will convince him.  I have in my mind everything I want to say and do.  I will sit on his knee and stroke his hair and kiss him.”  And she laughed softly as her spirit revived in the breath of a growing hope.  “Then I will tell him how handsome he is, and how I hear the ladies sighing for him, and he will come around all right by the third visit.  Oh, I know how to do it; I have done it so often.  Never fear!  I wish I had gone at it long ago.”

Her enthusiastic fever of hope was really contagious, but Brandon, whose life was at stake, had his wits quickened by the danger.

“Mary, would you like to see me a corpse before to-morrow noon?” he asked.

“Why! of course not; why do you ask such a dreadful question?”

“Because, if you wish to make sure of it, do what you have just said—­go to the king and tell him all.  I doubt if he could wait till morning.  I believe he would awaken me at midnight to put me to sleep forever—­at the end of a rope or on a block pillow.”

“Oh! no! you are all wrong; I know what I can do with Henry.”

“If that is the case, I say good-bye now, for I shall be out of England, if possible, by midnight.  You must promise me that you will not only not go to the king at all about this matter, but that you will guard your tongue, jealous of its slightest word, and remember with every breath that on your prudence hangs my life, which, I know, is dear to you.  Do you promise?  If you do not, I must fly; so you will lose me one way or the other, if you tell the king; either by my flight or by my death.”