"Nevertheless, sir, it is my duty to be the mouthpiece of my friend who hath come all this way to tell you that God himself hath taken up your cause against the great and noble Earl of Stowmaries, whose pride will soon be laid in the dust, who will become an abject, cringing creature, dependent mayhap on your bounty for subsistence, dispossessed, disinherited, nay worse, tried for treason, and hanged, sir, hanged as a traitor! Is not that a glorious revenge, sir, for the wrongs which he has done to you?"
"Nay, and by the Mass, sirrah," said M. Legros who had recovered sufficiently from his blind wrath to be justly indignant at this mealy-mouthed harangue, "if you do, value your shoulders and if your friend cares for his skin, you can have thirty seconds wherein to reach that door, after which the toe of my boot and the stout stick in yonder corner shall accelerate your footsteps."
"Sir," protested the clerk, prompted thereto by Daniel Pye, "my friend here desires to remind you that he was driven away by blows from your doors in this like manner just five months ago. Had you given him more ready access to your august person, the letter which he bore and which was written by my hand at a kind lady's bidding, would have been delivered into your hands one hour the earlier, and thus would have averted a misery which you yourself would now give your life's blood to undo."
The words were well chosen. The Huguenot clerk had interpreted Daniel Pye's promptings in a manner which could not fail to bear impress on Master Legros' mind. The shaft had been well aimed. It had struck a vital nerve centre. The tailor, feeling the justice of the reproof, curbed his wrath. He was silent for a moment or two, while the two men watched and waited.
Suddenly the touch of a hand which he loved, roused Master Legros from his moody incertitude and a girl's voice said with firm decision:
"These men are right in what they say, Father. There is no harm in hearing what they have to say. If they bring lying news or empty scandal 'twill be ample time then to turn them out of doors."
"You have not heard all their impertinent canting harangues, my jewel."
"I heard enough to understand that these men have come here to tell you of some evil which is about to descend on my lord of Stowmaries, my husband before God. That is so, is it not?"