CHAPTER XXVIII“You are hard,” Venetia said, “either to coax or to drive. There was a convent to which you might go, and which you would have ruled at a far day, but it must be another manner of life. It must be marriage for you.
“Now you can be wed to a great prince. You can be the first woman on the Barbary coast, from Alexandria to the narrow Straits, and you say you would liever be whipped. Can I think that? Suppose he change his mind, and yet give you no worse than a rope’s choice? Have you seen men hanged? But I have, and some women too. When they are cut down they are not pleasant to see.
“But you know naught. You are not fit to walk in the world’s ways. You should be in the cells. I say your uncle was right in that.
“But you are here now. You cannot grow melons and gather figs. Y
