But already Mistress Charity had guessed what had occurred, her good humor vanished, and she began scouring her cheek with her pinner.

"I'll never forgive you, master," she said crossly. "You had no right to ... hem ... with your face in that condition.... And you have not yet told us what happened."

"What happened?"

"Aye! you promised to tell me if I allowed you to kiss me. 'Tis done...."

"I well nigh broke my back," said Master Busy sententiously. "I hurt my knee ... that is what happened.... I am well-nigh choked with soot....

Ugh! ... that is what happened."

"Lud love you, Master Busy," she retorted with a saucy toss of her head, "I trust your life's partner will not need to hide herself in chimneys."

"Listen, wench, and I'll tell thee. No kind of servant of my Lord Protector's should ever be called upon to hide in chimneys. They are not comfortable and they are not clean."

"Bless the man!" she cried angrily, "are you ever going to tell us what did happen whilst you were there?"

"I was about to come to that point," he said imperturbably, "hadst thou not interrupted me. What with holding on so as not to fall, and the soot falling in my ears...."

"Aye! aye! ..."

"I heard nothing," he concluded solemnly. "Master Courage," he added with becoming severity, seeing that the youth was on the verge of making a ribald remark, which of necessity had to be checked betimes, "come into my room with me and help me to clean the traces of my difficult task from off my person. Come!"

And with ominous significance, he approached the young scoffer, his hand on an exact level with the latter's ear, his right foot raised to indicate a possible means of enforcing obedience to his commands.

On the whole, Master Courage thought it wise to repress both his hilarity and his pertinent remarks, and to follow the pompous, if begrimed, butler to the latter's room upstairs.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE OUTCAST

It took Mistress Charity some little time to recover her breath.

She had thrown herself into a chair, with her pinner over her face, in an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

When this outburst of hilarity had subsided, she sat up, and looked round her with eyes still streaming with merry tears.

But the laughter suddenly died on her lips and the merriment out of her eyes. A dull, tired voice had just said feebly:

"Is Sir Marmaduke de Chava.s.se within?"

Charity jumped up from the chair and stared stupidly at the speaker.

"The Lord love you, Master Richard Lambert," she murmured. "I thought you were your ghost!"

"Forgive me, mistress, if I have frightened you," he said. "It is mine own self, I give you a.s.surance of that, and I, fain would have speech with Sir Marmaduke."

Mistress Charity was visibly embarra.s.sed. She began mechanically to rub the black stain on her cheek.

"Sir Marmaduke is without just at present, Master Lambert," she stammered shyly, "... and ..."

"Yes? ... and? ..." he asked, "what is it, wench? ... speak out? ..."

"Sir Marmaduke gave orders, Master Lambert," she began with obvious reluctance, "that ..."

She paused, and he concluded the sentence for her:

"That I was not to be allowed inside his house.... Was that it?"

"Alas! yes, good master."

"Never mind, girl," he rejoined as he deliberately crossed the hall and sat down in the chair which she had just vacated. "You have done your duty: but you could not help admitting me, could you? since I walked in of mine own accord ... and now that I am here I will remain until I have seen Sir Marmaduke...."

"Well! of a truth, good master," she said with a smile, for 'twas but natural that her feminine sympathies should be on the side of a young and good-looking man, somewhat in her own sphere of life, as against the ill-humored, parsimonious master whom she served, "an you sit there so determinedly, I cannot prevent you, can I? ..."

Then as she perceived the look of misery on the young man's face, his pale cheeks, his otherwise vigorous frame obviously attenuated by fear, the motherly instinct present in every good woman's heart caused her to go up to him and to address him timidly, offering such humble solace as her simple heart could dictate:

"Lud preserve you, good master, I pray you do not take on so.... You know Master Courage and I, now, never believed all those stories about ye. Of a truth Master Busy, he had his own views, but then ... you see, good master, he and I do not always agree, even though I own that he is vastly clever with his discoveries and his clews; but Master Courage now ... Master Courage is a wonderful lad ... and he thinks that you are a persecuted hero! ... and I am bound to say that I, too, hold that view...."

"Thank you! ... thank you, kind mistress," said Lambert, smiling despite his dejection, at the girl's impulsive efforts at consolation.

His head had sunk down on his breast, and he sat there in the high-backed chair, one hand resting on each leather-covered arm, his pale face showing almost ghostlike against the dark background, and with the faint November light illumining the dark-circled eyes, the bloodless lips, and deeply frowning brow.

Mistress Charity gazed down on him with mute and kindly compa.s.sion.

Then suddenly a slight rustling noise as of a kirtle sweeping the polished oak of the stairs caused the girl to look up, then to pause a brief while, as if what she had now seen had brought forth a new train of thought; finally, she tiptoed silently out through the door of the dining-hall.

"Charity! Mistress Charity, I want you! ..." called Lady Sue from above.

We must presume, however, that the wench had closed the heavy door behind her, for certainly she did not come in answer to the call. On the other hand, Richard Lambert had heard it; he sprang to his feet and saw Sue descending the stairs.

She saw him, too, and it seemed as if at sight of him she had turned and meant to fly. But a word from him detained her.

"Sue!"

Only once had he thus called her by her name before, that long ago night in the woods, but now the cry came from out his heart, brought forth by his misery and his sorrow, his sense of terrible injustice and of an irretrievable wrong.

It never occurred to her to resent the familiarity. At sound of her name thus spoken by him she had looked down from the stairs and seen his pallid face turned up to her in such heartrending appeal for sympathy, that all her womanly instincts of tenderness and pity were aroused, all her old feeling of trustful friendship for him.

She, too, felt much of that loneliness which his yearning eyes expressed so pathetically; she, too, was conscious of grave injustice and of an irretrievable wrong, and her heart went out to him immediately in kindness and in love.

"Don't go, for pity's sake," he added entreatingly, for he thought that she meant to turn away from him; "surely you will not begrudge me a few words of kindness. I have gone through a great deal since I saw you...."

She descended a few steps, her delicate hand still resting on the banisters, her silken kirtle making a soft swishing noise against the polished oak of the stairs. It was a solace to him, even to watch her now. The sight of his adored mistress was balm to his aching eyes. Yet he was quick to note--with that sharp intuition peculiar to Love--that her dear face had lost much of its brightness, of its youth, of its joy of living. She was as exquisite to look on as ever, but she seemed older, more gentle, and, alas! a trifle sad.