"Never," said Cicely; "I would not that any should know it, not even my father; but mother, mother, I could not help telling you. You will let no one guess? I know it is unworthy, but—"
"Not unworthy to fear, my poor child, so long as thou dost not waver."
"It is, it is unworthy of my lineage. My mother queen would say so," cried Cis, drawing herself up.
"Giving way would be unworthy," said Susan, "but turn thou to thy God, my child, and He will give thee strength to carry through whatever is the duty of a faithful daughter towards this poor lady; and my husband, thou sayest, holds that so it is?"
"Yea, madam; he craved license to take me home, since I have truly often been ailing since those dreadful days at Tixall, and he hath promised to go to London with me."
"And is this to be done in thine own true name?" asked Susan, trembling somewhat at the risk to her husband, as well as to the maiden.
"I trow that it is," said Cis, "but the matter is to be put into the hands of M. de Chateauneuf, the French Ambassador. I have a letter here," laying her hand on her bosom, "which, the Queen declares, will thoroughly prove to him who I am, and if I go as under his protection, none can do my father any harm."
Susan hoped so, but she trusted to understand all better from her husband, though her heart failed her as much as, or even perhaps more than, did that of poor little Cis. Master Richard had sped on before their tardy conveyance, and had had time to give the heads of his intelligence before they reached the Manor house, and when they were conducted to my Lady's chamber, they saw him, by the light of a large fire, standing before the Earl and Countess, cap in hand, much as a groom or gamekeeper would now stand before his master and mistress.
The Earl, however, rose to receive the ladies; but the Countess, no great observer of ceremony towards other people, whatever she might exact from them towards herself, cried out, "Come hither, come hither, Cicely Talbot, and tell me how it fares with the poor lady," and as the maiden came forward in the dim light— "Ha! What! Is't she?" she cried, with a sudden start. "On my faith, what has she done to thee? Thou art as like her as the foal to the mare."
This exclamation disconcerted the visitors, but luckily for them the Earl laughed and declared that he could see no resemblance in Mistress Cicely's dark brows to the arched ones of the Queen of Scots, to which his wife replied testily, "Who said there was? The maid need not be uplifted, for there's nothing alike between them, only she hath caught the trick of her bearing so as to startle me in the dark, my head running on the poor lady. I could have sworn 'twas she coming in, as she was when she first came to our care fifteen years agone. Pray Heaven she may not haunt the place! How fareth she in health, wench?"