“Aye; they shall be signed.”

He went away at that, and Tybee entered.  Much to my comfort, the lieutenant asked no questions; so far from it, he crossed the room without a word, flung himself into the great chair and left me to my own communings.

These were not altogether of assurance.  Though I had promised readily enough to make my lie a truth, I saw that all was yet contingent upon my lady’s viewing of the proposal.  That I could win her over I had some hope, if only they would leave the task for me.  But there was room to fear that this poor miser father would make it all a thing of property and so provoke her to resistance.  And, notwithstanding what he said—­that she would do as she was bid—­I thought I knew her temper well enough to prophesy a hitch.  For I made sure of one thing, that if she put her will against the world, the world would never move her.

’Twas past midnight, with Tybee dozing in his chair, when next I heard some stirrings in the corridor.  As before, it was the lifting of the wooden bar that roused my friendly guard, and when he went to parley at the door I stood apart and turned my back.

When I looked again my company was come.  At the table, busied with a parchment that might have been a ducal title deed for size, stood Gilbert Stair and the factor-lawyer, Owen Pengarvin.  A little back of them the good old Father Matthieu had Margery on his arm.  And in the corner Tybee stood to keep the door.

I grouped them all in one swift eye-sweep, and having listed them, strove to read some lessoning of my part in my dear lady’s face.  She gave me nothing of encouragement, nor yet a cue of any kind to lead to what it was that she would have me say or do.  As I had seen it last, under the light of the flaring torches in the room below, her face was cold and still; and she was standing motionless beside the priest, looking straight at me, it seemed, with eyes that saw nothing.

It was the factor-lawyer who broke the silence, saying, with his predetermined smirk, that the parchment was ready for my signature.  Thinking it well beneath me to measure words with this knavish pettifogger, I looked beyond him and spoke to his master.

“I would have a word or two in private with your daughter before this matter ripens further, Mr. Stair,” I said.

My lady dropped the priest’s arm and came to stand beside me in the window-bay.  I offered her a chair but she refused to sit.  There was so little time to spare that I must needs begin without preliminary.

“What has your father told you, Margery?” I asked.

“He tells me nothing that I care to know.”

“But he has told you what you must do?”

“Yes.”  She looked with eyes that saw me not.

“And you are here to do it of your own free will?”

“No.”

“Yet it must be done.”

“So he says, and so you say.  But I had rather die.”