“Rise, my Lord, this instant! Harry of Bolingbroke hath sent to take you. We must hide you some whither.”
Le Despenser was almost too tired and depressed to care for apprehension.
“Whither, my Lady?” he asked hopelessly. “Better yield, maybe.”
“Niñerias!” (Nonsense!—literally, childishness) cried Constance hastily, using a word of her mother’s tongue, which she had frequently heard from the lips of Doña Juana. And springing to the wardrobe in the ante-chamber, she was back in a second, with a thick furred winter gown.
“Lo’ you, my Lord! Lap you in this, and—”
And Constance glanced round the room for a safe hiding-place.
“And!”—said Le Despenser, smiling sadly, but doing as he was requested.
“Go up the chimney!” said Constance hurriedly. “They will never look there, and there is little warmth in yon ashes.”
She caught up the shovel, and flung a quantity of cinders on the almost extinct fire. The idea was not a bad one. The chimney was as wide as a small closet; there were several rests for the sweep; and at one side was a little chamber hollowed out, specially intended for some such emergency as the present. With the help of the two ladies and Maude, Le Despenser climbed up into his hiding-place.
Ten minutes later, Sir William Hankeford was bowing low in the banquet-hall before the royal lady of the Castle, who gravely and very courteously assured him of her deep regret that her lord was not at home to receive him.