!" and she shuddered again.

"See," said Susan, as they had reached the corner of a thick screen of
yew-trees, "all is safe. There they stand, and father between them
speaking to them. No, we will not go nearer, since we know that it is
well with them. Men deal with each other better out of women's
earshot. Ah, see, there they are giving one another their hands. All
is over now."

"Humfrey stands tall, grave, and stiff! He is only doing it because
father bids him," said Cicely. "Antony is much more willing."

"Poor Humfrey! he knows better than Antony how vain any hope must be of
my silly little princess," said Susan, with a sigh for her boy. "Come
in, child, and set these locks in order. The hour of noon hath long
been over, and father hath not yet dined."

So they flitted out of sight as Richard and his son turned from the
place of encounter, the former saying, "Son Humfrey, I had deemed thee
a wiser man."

"Sir, how could a man brook seeing that fellow on his knee to her? Is
it not enough to be debarred from my sweet princess myself, but I must
see her beset by a Papist and traitor, fostered and encouraged too?"

"And thou couldst not rest secure in the utter impossibility of her
being given to him? He is as much out of reach of her as thou art."

"He has secured my Lord and my Lady on his side!" growled Humfrey.

"My Lord is not an Amurath, nor my Lady either," said Richard, shortly.
"As long as I pass for her father I have power to dispose of her, and I
am not going to give another woman's daughter away without her consent."

"Yet the fellow may have her ear," said Humfrey. "I know him to be
popishly inclined, and there is a web of those Romish priests all over
the island, whereof this Queen holds the strands in her fingers,
captive though she be. I should not wonder if she had devised this
fellow's suit."

"This is the very madness of jealousy, Humfrey," said his father. "The
whole matter was, as thy mother and thy Lord have both told me, simply
a device of my Lady Countess's own brain."

"Babington took to it wondrous naturally," muttered Humfrey.

"That may be; but as for the lady at Wingfield, her talk to our poor
maid hath been all of archdukes and dukes. She is far too haughty to
think for a moment of giving her daughter to a mere Derbyshire esquire,
not even of noble blood. You may trust her for that."

This pacified Humfrey for a little while, especially as the bell was
clanging f