He would fain have gone on first to ascertain this point, but his friend declined to be left alone with these ladies. "I would not have my life at the mercy of that Lady-Superior, and I would not leave you in her power, and so, for the same reason, I decline to be left here by myself," he said, in a jocular way.
At length a nun summoned them to the gate, where, she said, Cicely was awaiting them; and there she stood when they appeared, muffled up to the eyes, so that the most prying and impudent of students could not catch a glimpse of the sweet, shy face; and she walked between the two men without asking a question as to how far she was to go, or how all the friends at Greenwich were faring.
Judging her by himself, Miles was not surprised at this silence, for he had no wish to talk, and, indeed, the state of the roads, and the rushing parties of students compelled them to give more attention to the passengers around them than to each other.
Cicely walked very slowly now, Miles thought. Remembering how she had climbed the hills with him in Greenwich Park, her lagging steps now made him think that she must be very weak through the fasts she had been keeping, or else she was very tired.
At last their hostelry was reached, and then Master Baldock hastily seized the cloak she was wearing, and tore it off her head.
"I thought so! I thought so!" he exclaimed. "Fool that I have been to trust a nun," for there stood revealed before them the demure face of an elderly nun, instead of Cicely Guildford!
[CHAPTER XVII.]
TOWN AND GOWN.
THE Cardinal's commissioner stood for a moment and stared blankly at the elderly nun who had personated Cicely, and then broke into a storm of oaths and imprecations, cursing himself for a fool, and Miles for suffering himself to be cheated; and during this hurricane of passion the nun managed to make her escape and return to the convent to tell her story.
Miles, too, was dumbfounded; but it was with grief and dismay, as he thought of what Cicely's fate was likely to be, left defenceless in the hands of the hard woman who had unrestrained power over her.