ey continued to descend the corridor.

"It is right well," thought Dick. "Let me but know my Lady Brackley's
chamber, and it will go hard an I find not Dame Hatch upon an errand."

And just then a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and, with a bound and a
choked cry, he turned to grapple his assailant.

He was somewhat abashed to find, in the person whom he had so roughly
seized, the short young lady in the furs. She, on her part, was shocked
and terrified beyond expression, and hung trembling in his grasp.

"Madam," said Dick, releasing her, "I cry you a thousand pardons; but I
have no eyes behind, and, by the mass, I could not tell ye were a maid."

The girl continued to look at him, but, by this time, terror began to be
succeeded by surprise, and surprise by suspicion. Dick, who could read
these changes on her face, became alarmed for his own safety in that
hostile house.

"Fair maid," he said, affecting easiness, "suffer me to kiss your hand,
in token ye forgive my roughness, and I will even go."

"Y' are a strange monk, young sir," returned the young lady, looking him
both boldly and shrewdly in the face; "and now that my first
astonishment hath somewhat passed away, I can spy the layman in each
word you utter. What do ye here? Why are ye thus sacrilegiously tricked
out? Come ye in peace or war? And why spy ye after Lady Brackley like a
thief?"

"Madam," quoth Dick, "of one thing I pray you to be very sure: I am no
thief. And even if I come here in war, as in some degree I do, I make no
war upon fair maids, and I hereby entreat them to copy me so far, and to
leave me be. For, indeed, fair mistress, cry out--if such be your
pleasure--cry but once, and say what ye have seen, and the poor
gentleman before you is merely a dead man. I cannot think ye would be
cruel," added Dick; and taking the girl's hand gently in both of his, he
looked at her with courteous admiration.

"Are ye then a spy--a Yorkist?" asked the maid.

"Madam," he replied, "I am indeed a Yorkist, and in some sort, a spy.
But that which bringeth me into this house, the same which will win for
me the pity and interest of your kind heart, is neither of York nor
Lancaster. I will wholly put my life in your discretion. I am a lover,
and my name--"

But here the young lady clapped her hand suddenly upon Dick's mouth,
looked hastily up and down and east and west, and, seeing the coast
clear, began to drag the young man, with great strength and vehem