“I did not call,” said Ralph dully.  “I do not know what you mean, Mistress Atherton.”

She made a little impatient gesture.

“Ah! yes,” she said, “it is something.  Tell me quickly.  I suppose it has to do with my Lord.  What is it?”

“It is nothing,” said Ralph again.

They stood looking at one another in silence.  Beatrice’s eyes ran a moment up and down his rich dress, the papers in his hands, then wandered to the heaped floor, the table, and returned to the papers in his hands.

“You must tell me,” she said.  “What is that you are holding?”

An angry terror seized Ralph.

“That is my affair, Mistress Atherton.  What is your business with me?”

She came a step nearer, and leant her left hand on his table.  He could see those steady eyes on his face; she looked terribly strong and controlled.

“Indeed you must tell me, Mr. Torridon.  I am come here to do something.  I do not know what.  What are those papers?”

He turned and dropped them on to the chair behind him.

“I tell you again, I do not know what you mean.”

“It is useless,” she said.  “Have they been to you yet?  What do you mean to do about my Lord?  You know he is in the Tower?”

“I suppose so,” said Ralph, “but my counsel is my own.”

“Mr. Torridon, let us have an end of this.  I know well that you must have many secrets against my lord—­”

“I tell you that what I know is nothing.  I have not a hundredth part of his papers.”

He felt himself desperate and bewildered, like a man being pushed to the edge of a precipice, step by step.  But those black eyes held and compelled him on.  He scarcely knew what he was saying.

“And are these papers all his?  What have you been doing with them?”

“My Lord told me to sort them.”

The words were drawn out against his own will.

“And those in your hand—­on the chair.  What are they?”

Ralph made one more violent effort to regain the mastery.

“If you were not a woman, Mistress Atherton, I should tell you you were insolent.”

Not a ripple troubled those strong eyes.

“Tell me, Mr. Torridon, what are they?”

He stood silent and furious.

“I will tell you what they are,” she said; “they are my Lord’s secrets.  Is it not so?  And you were about to burn them.  Oh!  Ralph, is it not so?”

Her voice had a tone of entreaty in it.  He dropped his eyes, overcome by the passion that streamed from her.

“Is it not so?” she cried again.

“Do you wish me to do so?” he said amazed.  His voice seemed not his own; it was as if another spoke for him.  He had the same sensation of powerlessness as once before when she had lashed him with her tongue in the room downstairs.

“Wish you?” she cried.  “Why, yes; what else?”

He lifted his eyes to hers; the room seemed to have grown darker yet in those few minutes.  He could only see now a shadowed face looking at him; but her bright passionate eyes shone out from it and dominated him.