While Allison was talking, Betteris came into the chamber again, and with her was Munn. Only he was now clean and shaven and wore a coat of Dick Fowell's and a fresh shirt, so that, for all that his face was thinner than it used to be, he looked himself again.
Presently the two young girls stole from the room, and Merrylips and Munn were left together. What a talk they had, while he sat upon the bed and held her two hands fast, as if he were afraid to let her go!
Munn told Merrylips how he and Stephen Plasket had been made prisoners at Loxford, and how troubled he had been for her, when he thought about her, there at Monksfield, with never a friend to help her. In the hope of getting to her, he and Stephen had tried to escape, when they were being taken under guard to London. Stephen had got away, but he himself had been retaken. After that he had been closely guarded, and not over-tenderly treated, Merrylips guessed, but of that part Munn would not speak.
Then he told her how puzzled he had been, when an order came to the prison where he had been placed that he should be sent to Ryeborough. He confessed that he had been much afraid lest he should be brought before Will Lowry, and made to answer for carrying off Merrylips and using Herbert so roughly.
In that fear he had passed several unhappy hours, a prisoner in the gatehouse of Ryeborough castle. And then he had been ordered into the long parlor, and there he had found Merrylips.
"A rare fright Lieutenant Fowell set me in, with all this precious mystery," Munn grumbled. "But of a truth I owe him too much to grudge that he should have his sport. For he is right friendly, thanks to his old comradeship with Longkin and the affection that he hath to the little lad he thought thee. So he holdeth me here, a prisoner on parole, and through my lord Caversham thinketh soon to give me in exchange for one of their own officers."
In her turn Merrylips told Munn all her adventures and all the kindness that she had met with at Monksfield. She told him everything, except the greatest thing of all—that Rupert was nephew to Lady Sybil Fernefould.
For when Merrylips spoke Rupert's name, and asked how he fared, and why was he not come, too, to speak with her, Munn stiffened a little. In a careless voice he said:—
"That little horseboy, Hinkel? Ay, to be sure, he hath served thee fairly. A brisk lad, no doubt! Our father will reward him handsomely."
So Merrylips said no more about Rupert. But after Munn had left her, she thought about him. She wondered, with a sinking heart, if indeed Rupert had been in the right, when he had said it would be hard work to make the grown folk believe his story.