At sound of the name Everingham started. One or two vague recollections, in connection with the soothsayer of East Molesey Fair, seemed to be chasing one another in his mind, but he could not give them definite shape.
A strange feeling, made up of uneasiness and shame, coupled with excitement and intense curiosity, caused him to go and pick up the watchman's lanthorn, which lay on the ground close by.
When he was near the girl again he held it up, and the light fell full on her face.
Then he remembered.
It was Mirrab, the necromancer, the kitchen wench, used by a vulgar trickster to hoodwink some gullible burgesses and their dames at the village fair, but whom Nature had, in one of her unaccountable freaks, endowed with the same golden hair, the same exquisite features, the same deep and wonderful eyes, as the most beautiful woman at Mary Tudor's court, the Lady Ursula Glynde.
The veil which usually enveloped Mirrab's head had fallen round her shoulders; her dress was of coarse woollen stuff, open at the neck and short in the sleeves; the arms and hands, rough and clumsy in shape, betrayed the girl's humble origin, and the likeness to Lady Ursula was confined to the face and hair. But it was there, nevertheless; quite unmistakable, even bewildering to the two men who were gazing, speechless, at this strange spectacle.
Then Everingham put down the lanthorn. He dared not look at the Cardinal, half fearing, perhaps, that the wild thoughts and schemes which had suddenly arisen in his mind at sight of this extraordinary freak of nature should have already found more definite shape in His Eminence's astute and far-seeing brain.
Strangely enough, at this moment, the practised diplomatist, the wily and unscrupulous Spaniard, met the more simple-souled Englishman on common ground, and at once felt sure of his co-operation.
Both had the same end in view: a desire to break up any relationship which may have sprung up between the Duke of Wessex and the beautiful young girl, of whom this otherwise coarse wench was the perfect physical counterpart. But the Spaniard was the quicker in thought and in action. Whilst Everingham still vaguely wondered how the extraordinary resemblance might be utilized to gain that great end which he had in view, the Cardinal had already formed and matured a plan.
He took the veil from Mirrab's shoulders and once more drew it over her head. Then he undid the clumsy knot with which the watchman had pinioned her hands. Mirrab remained perfectly passive the while; she seemed under the magic spell of the soft, velvety hands, which had, as it were, taken possession of her person.