"
And then, more and more, Anthony began to lose his self-consciousness,
and poured out the story from the beginning; telling how he had been
brought up in the same village with James Maxwell; and what a loyal
gentleman he was; and then the story of the trick by which he had been
deceived. As he spoke his whole appearance seemed to change; instead of
the shy and rather clumsy manner with which he had begun, he was now
natural and free; he moved his hands in slight gestures; his blue eyes
looked the Queen fairly in the face; he moved a little forward on his
knees as he pleaded, and he spoke with a passion that astonished both
Mary and himself afterwards when he thought of it, in spite of his short
and broken sentences. He was conscious all the while of an intense
external strain and pressure, as if he were pleading for his life, and
the time was short. Elizabeth relaxed her rigid attitude, and leaned her
chin on her hand and her elbow on the table and watched him, her thin
lips parted, the pearl rope and crown on her head, and the pearl pendants
in her ears moving slightly as she nodded at points in his story.
"Ah! your Grace," he cried, lifting his open hands towards her a little,
"you have a woman's heart; all your people say so. You cannot allow this
man to be so trapped to his death! Treachery never helped a cause yet. If
your men cannot catch these priests fairly, then a-God's name, let them
not catch them at all! But to use a friend, and make a Judas of him; to
make the very lips that have spoken friendly, speak traitorously; to bait
the trap like that--it is devilish.
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