It was in the hour before supper one evening that I told her of it, as we sat in the tapestried parlour, looking into the fire from the settle where we sat together.
"My dear," said I, "I wish to ask your advice. But it is a very private matter indeed."
"Tell me," said Dolly contentedly. (Her hand was in mine, and she looked extraordinary pretty in the firelight.)
"I am asked whether I will undertake a little work. In itself it is excellent. It concerns the protection of His Majesty; but it is the means that I am doubtful about."
Then I told her that of the details—of the how and the when and the where—I knew no more than she: but that, if all went well, I might find myself trusted by a traitor: and that I was considering whether in such a cause as this it was a work to which I could put my hand, to betray that trust, if I got it. But before I was done speaking I knew that I could not—so wonderfully does speaking to another clear one's mind—and that though I could not condemn outright a man who thought fit to do so, any more than I would condemn a scavenger for cleaning the gutter, it was not work for a gentleman to seek out a confidence that he might betray it again.
"Now that I have put it into words," I said, "I see that it cannot be done. Certainly it would advance me very much with His Majesty; (and that is one reason why I spoke to you of it)—but such advance would be too dearly bought. Do you not think so too, my dear?"
She nodded slowly and very emphatically three or four times, without speaking, as her manner was.
"Then that is decided," said I, "and in a day or two I will go to town and tell them so."
So we put the matter away then; and spoke of matters far more dear to both of us, until Tom came in and exclaimed at our sitting in the dark as he called it.
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