"She
openly admits that this Gardiner, or whatever else be his name, is her
paramour; and, for the remainder, what hath been wrested from her by
her own contradictions, sufficiently confounds her."

"Base man, it is false!" cried the lady, roused into indignation by
the charge. I have confessed to naught whereof a woman should be
ashamed. There is no infamy attached to my name; and as high as Heaven
is above the earth, so far is Sir Christopher above thy craven
nature."

"Heyday!" said Dudley; "it thunders and lightens. I bandy not words
with thee, but the record of the Secretary will show."

"I find not the exact word," said the Secretary, Master Nowell, after
examining his minutes, "but she doth acknowledge this pretended Knight
as her protector since they left England, and the terms are
equivalent."

"I meant it not so. I have acknowledged nothing to my disgrace,"
exclaimed the lady. "Ye have enveigled and entrapped me by artful
questions, and then put constructions on my answers which do not
belong to them. A worthy business, truly, for grave and learned men to
be engaged in, to set their wits to work against a forlorn woman, to
pervert her language into shameful meanings."

"Madam," said Winthrop, "you have permission to retire. Bring with
thee," he added, addressing the beadle, "the little Indian girl,
without letting her come to speech with this gentlewoman, and also
Sassacus, properly guarded."

CHAPTER XXX.

"Vainly, but well, that Chief had fought,
He was a captive now;
Yet pride, that fortune humbles not,
Was written on his brow.
The scars his dark, broad bosom wore,
Showed warrior true and brave;
A prince among his tribe before--"

BRYANT.

"A manifest Papist! I can scent one of them out as easily as a hound
doth the hare," said Endicott, after the lady had retired.

"Beyond a peradventure," echoed Dudley; "and the attempt at deception
doth aggravate her guilt."

"I, too, remarked," said an Assistant, "that she possesses not the
shibboleth whereunto she laid claim."

"Yet, wherefore should they, being Papists, come hither?" said Master
Nowell. "I understand not the mystery that surrounds them."

"A circumstance in itself suspicious," said Endicott, "wherefore needs
an honest intent to hide its head?"

"On the contrary, it is ever ready to show itself in the sunlight,"
said Master Nowell.

"Know you what is expected to be learned from the child?" asked an