"Master Pory," I said at last, coming to a stop before him, "if,
without breach of faith, you can tell me what was said or done at
the Council to-day anent this matter, you will lay me under an
obligation that I shall not forget."
He studied the lace on his sleeve in silence for a while; then
glanced up at me out of those small, sly, merry eyes. "Why," he
answered, "the King demands that the lady be sent home forthwith,
on the ship that gave us such a turn to-day, in fact, with a couple of
women to attend her, and under the protection of the only other
passenger of quality, to wit, my Lord Carnal. His Majesty cannot
conceive it possible that she hath so far forgotten her birth, rank,
and duty as to have maintained in Virginia this mad masquerade,
throwing herself into the arms of any petty planter or broken
adventurer who hath chanced to have an hundred and twenty
pounds of filthy tobacco with which to buy him a wife. If she hath
been so mad, she is to be sent home none the less, where she will
be tenderly dealt with as one surely in this sole matter under the
spell of witchcraft. The ship is to bring home also - and in irons -
the man who married her. If he swears to have been ignorant of her
quality, and places no straws in the way of the King's
Commissioners, then shall he be sent honorably back to Virginia
with enough in his hand to get him another wife.
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