"Quick, quick, tell me what it is!" she said, frowning.

"You've not come here for naught, Soolsby." Still holding her hand, he leaned over and whispered in her ear.

For an instant she stood as though transfixed, and then, with a curious muffled cry, broke away from him and turned to go below.
"Keep your mouth shut, lass, till proper time," he called after her, as she descended the steps hastily again.

Then he came slowly back to the Duchess.
He looked her in the face--he was so little like a peasant, so much more like a sailor here with his feet on the deck of a floating thing.

"Your grace is a good friend to her ladyship," he said at last deliberately, "and 'tis well that you tell her ladyship.