“She scarcely seemed to hear me, but stood looking about, her face working oddly as though she wished to weep but had well-nigh forgotten how. Thinking to cheer her, and wishing to show off the garden which I had begun to think of as my own, I touched her arm and pointed to the foremost yew-tree, lank and awkward after all the years.
“‘That,’ I said, ‘is the Lady Abigail Peckham.’
“She looked at me in startled wonder.
“‘How came you to know that, boy?’ she asked sharply.
“‘My father told me,’ I answered, and, going from one to another of the maids-of-honour, I named them all, ‘Cecelia, Eleanor, Gertrude and Anne.’
“‘There is no one but my old play-fellow who ever heard those names,’ she said, the stiffness of her manner melting suddenly. ‘You must be the son of Robin Radpath.’
“‘And you,’ I answered boldly, for her smile had put me quite at ease, ‘must be the great Queen Elizabeth of England.’
“‘Ay,’ she returned, ‘a queen who has outworn her time and who has come back to look once more before she dies upon the place where, of all her life, she was the happiest.’
“She began to move to and fro across the grass, seeming to greet each flower and shrub as though it were an old friend. Suddenly, however, she turned to me again.
“‘Are you of your father’s faith?’ she inquired.