"I command you to tell me what I wish to know, Harry Wingfield,"
said she, and now her eyes fixed mine with no shrinking, but a
broadside of scorn and imperiousness.

"And I refuse to tell you, madam," said I.

Then indeed she caught my arm with a little nervous hand, like a
cramp of wire. "You shall tell me, sir," she declared. "This much I
know already. Yesterday the Golden Horn came in and was unladen of
powder and shot instead of the goods that my sister pretended to
order, and the cases are stored at Laurel Creek. This much do I
know, but not what is afoot, nor for what Mary had conference with
Sir Humphrey Hyde and Ralph last night, and you later on with Sir
Humphrey. I demand of you that you tell me, Harry Wingfield."

"That I cannot do, madam," said I.

She gave me a look with those great black eyes of hers, and how it
came to pass I never knew, but straight to the root of the whole she
went as if my face had been an open book.

Such quickness of wit I had often heard ascribed to women, but never
saw I aught like that, and I trow it seemed witchcraft. "'Tis
something about the young tobacco plants," quoth she. "The king
would not pass the measure to cease the planting, and the assembly
of this spring broke up with no decision. Major Beverly, who
is clerk of the assembly, hath turned against the government
since Bacon died, and all the burgesses are with him, and
Governor Culpeper sails for England soon, and what, is the
lieutenant-governor to hold the reins? There is a plot hatching to