"Aye!" he said roughly, laughing that wicked, cruel laugh of his, which
damped her eagerness, and struck chill terror into her heart, "aye! the
whipping-post for you, fair Editha, for keeping a gaming-house. What? Of
a truth I need not urge you to be cautious."

Probably at this moment she would have given worlds--had she possessed
them--if she could but have dissociated herself from her
brother-in-law's future altogether. Though she was an empty-headed,
brainless kind of woman, she was not by nature a wicked one. Necessity
had driven her into linking her fortunes with those of Sir Marmaduke.
And he had been kind to her, when she was in deep distress: but for him
she would probably have starved, for her beauty had gone and her career
as an actress had been, for some inexplicable reason, quite suddenly cut
short, whilst a police raid on the gaming-house over which she presided
had very nearly landed her in a convict's cell.

She had escaped severe punishment then, chiefly because Cromwell's laws
against gambling were not so rigorous at the time as they had since
become, also because she was able to plead ignorance of them, and
because of the status of first offense.

Therefore she knew quite well what she risked through the scheme which
she had so boldly propounded to Sir Marmaduke. Dire disgrace and infamy,
if my Lord Protector's spies once more came upon the gamesters in her
house--unawares.

Utter social ruin and worse! Yet she risked it all, in order to help
him. She did not love him, nor had she any hopes that he would of his
own free will do more than give her a bare pittance for her needs once
he had secured Lady Sue's fortune; but she was shrewd enough to reckon
that the more completely she was mixed up in his nefarious projects, the
more absolutely forced would he be to accede to her demands later on.
The word blackmail had not been invented in those days, but the deed
itself existed and what Editha had in her mind when she risked ostracism
for Sir Marmaduke's sake was something very akin to it.

But he, in the meanwhile, had thrown off his dejection. He was full of
eagerness, of anticipated triumph now.

The rough idea which was to help him in his schemes had originated in
Editha's brain, but already he had elaborated it; had seen in the plan a
means not only of attaining his own ends with regard to Sue, but also
of wreaking a pleasing vengeance on the man who was trying to frustrate
him.

"I pray yo