Through no rashness of mine must that letter come into the hands of the King's friends, else was I dishonoured.

It was an effective barrier between us.
So long as you possessed that letter you might pipe as you pleased, and I must dance to the tune you set.

And then this morning what you came to tell me was that things were changed; that it was mine to call the tune.
Had I had the strength to be a villain, you had been mine now, and your brother and Sir Rowland might have hanged on the rope of their own weaving." She looked at him in a startled, almost shamefaced manner.

This was an aspect of the case she had not considered.
"You realize it, I see," he said, and smiled wistfully.

"Then perhaps you realize why you found me so unwilling to do the thing you craved.
Having treated me ungenerously, you came to cast yourself upon my generosity, asking me--though I scarcely think you understood--to beggar myself of life itself with all it held for me.