A dozen nights John Law knew well enough where Mary Connynge was, though no one else might know.

There was feminine triumph now in full in the heart of this Mary Connynge, who had gone white with rage at the sight of a rose offered across her face to another woman.

Had she not her master?
Was he not hers, all hers, belonging in no wise to any other?
For the future, Mary Connynge did not ponder it.

An ephemera, once buried generations deep in the mire and slime of lower conditions, and now craving blindly but the sunlight of the day, she would have sought the deadly caress of life even though at that moment it had sealed her doom.

Foolish or wise, she was as she was; since, under our frail society, life is as it is.
Only at night, on those nights when she was sleepless on her own couch beneath the roof of Catharine Knollys, did Mary Connynge allow herself to think.