"Oh," she cried that night, "would but Elizabeth be content to let me resign my rights to my son, making them secure to him, and then let me retire to some convent in Lorraine, or in Germany, or wherever she would, so would I never trouble her more!"
"Will you not write this to her?" asked Cicely.
"What would be the use of it, child? They would tamper with the letter, pledging me to what I never would undertake. I know how they can cut and garble, add and take away! Never have they let me see or speak to her as woman to woman. All I have said or done has been coloured."
"Mother, I would that I could go to her; Humfrey has seen and spoken to her, why should not I?"
"Thou, poor silly maid! They would drive Cis Talbot away with scorn, and as to Bride Hepburn, why, she would but run into all her mother's dangers."
"It might be done, and if so I will do it," said Cicely, clasping her hands together.
"No, child, say no more. My worn-out old life is not worth the risk of thy young freedom. But I love thee for it, mine ain bairnie, mon enfant a moi. If thy brother had thy spirit, child—"
"I hate the thought of him! Call him not my brother!" cried Cicely hotly. "If he were worth one brass farthing he would have unfurled the Scottish lion long ago, and ridden across the Border to deliver his mother."
"And how many do you think would have followed that same lion?" said Mary, sadly.
"Then he should have come alone with his good horse and his good sword!"