That night when I crept to my little ladies to see that all was quiet, I, pausing in the door-way, did note them as they lay—my little lady with her head on Mistress Marian's breast, and a smile on her lips, and Mistress Marian with her arms wrapped close about her, and her dark hair swept out over the pillow, and thence to the floor, like a stream o' water that reflects a black cloud, but her eyes wide open, looking straight forward, as though at a ghost. And I stole off and sobbed myself to sleep, but not before I had awakened Jock, who did grunt, after the uncourteous, pig-like manner of a suddenly wakened man, be-thump his pillow as though 't had been an anvil, and in turning over, twist the bedclothes half off of me, so that what with the cold (it being then the fall o' th' year), and what with my distress, I slept but uneasily.
And the next thing I knew o' th' matter, there was a wedding, and my little lady wedded to Lord Ernle, and Mistress Marian her bridemaid. Surely if the good God e'er sent happiness on earth, He did send it to my little lady and to his lordship. 'Twas at this time that Sir Rowland asked Mistress Marian to be his spouse. And 'twas even i' th' same spot where Lord Ernle had discovered his love for my little lady, that he asked her.
Again it was as though some one had smitten her—her face deadly white and the red line across her brow. She put out one hand to keep him from her, and let it rest on his shoulder, and she said, "Rowland, I love thee well, but no man will ever call me wife."
He said, "Is this the end?"
She said, "Though we should both live to see the last day, it is the end."
Then he went, with his head bowed down. And when he was gone, for the first time in all her life she wept aloud.
Some time passed, and matters waxed ever hotter and hotter 'twixt Cavaliers and Roundheads, till one night there rode up a man to the castle gate with papers for Lord Ernle, and the long and the short o't was this: His lordship was ordered to ride forth to war, and my little lady only three months his wife. Now when this blow fell upon them they were all at meat in this very hall, for ofttimes in cold weather they dined here, even as thy father and mother do now, on account o' th' greater warmth.
And when my lord had glimpsed at the papers he did start to his feet, saying, "Where is the man who brought these papers?"
Jock answered him, "He is gone, my lord."