"And they will enjoy the estates, they think, while I rot here!"
"Oh, my Thomas!" moaned his wife, reaching out to him. But he paid no
attention to her.
"While I rot here!" he cried again. "But I will not! I tell you I will
not!"
"Yes, sir?" said Marjorie gently, suddenly aware that her heart had
begun to beat swiftly.
He glanced at her, and his face changed a little.
"I will not," he murmured. "I must break out of my prison. Only their
accursed--"
Again he interrupted himself, biting sharply on his lip.
* * * * *
For an instant the girl had thought that all her old distrust of him was
justified, and that he contemplated in some way the making of terms that
would be disgraceful to a Catholic. But what terms could these be? He
was a FitzHerbert; there was no evading his own blood; and he was the
victim chosen by the Council to answer for the rest. Nothing, then,
except the denial of his faith--a formal and deliberate apostasy--could
serve him; and to think that of the nephew of old Sir Thomas, and the
son of John, was inconceivable. There seemed no way out; the torment of
this prison must be borne. She only wished he could have borne it more
manfully.
It seemed, as she watched him, that some other train of thought had
fastened upon him. His wife had begun again her lamentations, bewailing
his cell and his clothes, and his loss of liberty, asking him whether he
were not ill, whether he had food enough to eat; and he hardly answered
her or glanced at her, except once when he remembered to tell her that a
good gift to the gaoler would mean a little better food, and perhaps
more light for himself.
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