“I do not snatch my love back again,” she answered pleadingly.  “I could not if I would.  I have given it to you for life, and it is beyond recall.  It is yours forever and forever—­all of which my poor aching heart is capable.  Would you rather it had lain in my breast unspoken, through all the long years I have to live?  You say your love is unselfish—­”

“If there’s anything unselfish in me,” interrupted Hamilton.

“Yes, I believe it is unselfish to the extent that a man’s love may be,” returned Frances, defending herself.  “But if it is, surely you would not deny me the joy of telling you of mine, when it is all the happiness I shall ever know my whole life through.  You say, with truth, I believe, that you would not permit me to share your fate if I would, because you fear to make me unhappy.  Yet you complain and say that I am cruel because I take now what joy I can at so shameful a sacrifice of womanly pride and modesty.  You say that I am cruel because I cannot give you all—­myself.  I would share your fortunes unhesitatingly were it not that I dare not give one thought to my own happiness.”

She paused for a moment to gather self-control, and when she was more calm, proceeded with her defence:  “I belong to my father and to my house, and God has appointed me to lift them from their fallen estate.  I cannot give you myself, but I do give you my love for the sheer ecstasy of giving, and beg you to accept it as all that I have to offer and to give me the sweet privilege of keeping yours, which.  I know is mine, that it may warm my heart in the weary years to come.  I wonder if you, being a man, can understand it all.  I hardly understand it myself, but this I know:  I have done what I have done because I could not help it, and you say that I am cruel because you feel a part of the pain I suffer.”

“No, no, I was wrong,” said Hamilton, dropping to his knees before her and seizing her hand.  “Forgive me and believe that my love is unselfish and that it will be yours so long as I live.  All that is not evil in me, I owe to you, and I am striving to make myself more worthy of your love, even though I must surrender you to another.”

“Betty told me of your good deeds when a plague was raging in Bishopgate ward,” said Frances, “and Baron Ned has told me that you have changed your ways since leaving court.”

“I have changed since I learned to know you,” he interrupted, “and now, with my first effort to be a man, misfortunes come trooping at my heels so fast that I know not what to do nor where to turn.”

“That was one reason why I came to see you,” she said.  “The king seeks your life because it is said that you threatened his.  But you seem to know your danger, and I suppose you have been warned.”

“Yes, Grammont warned me.  He is a very adroit person and is my friend.  He stands guard for me at court, partly because he is my friend, but chiefly, I imagine, because it is the command of his king, Louis of France.  I do not want to bring Baron Ned into trouble.  He is known to be my friend, and the king might have him watched, so I am using Grammont as my spy at Whitehall.”