'I know not, sir, unless it be the greedy desire of the Papists to gain over, and educate in their false doctrines and evil practices, children likely to serve their ends. Mistress Gifford's husband was, so it is said, a Papist from the first moment that he married her, but hid it from her, and played his part well.'
'I do not doubt it. While in the service of my Uncle Leicester, it was his policy to profess the Reformed Faith. Failing to obtain what he wanted, he threw off disguise, and, as I understand, after an intrigue with another man's wife, had a fierce fight with the injured husband, so deadly that both lost their lives in the fray.'
'Some said this Gifford, fearing disgrace, had left the country, others that he died. Mistress Gifford must believe the last to be true or she would not, methinks, have clothed herself in the weeds of widowhood.'
'But now, my good Humphrey, you would fain have leave to prosecute your inquiries. God speed you in them, and may they be successful. Mistress Gifford's reference to Douay makes me think she may have some notion, to connect this centre of the Papists with the disappearance of her boy. At any rate, see her, and, if it is advisable for you to repair to Douay, go, but beware you are not entrapped by any of those Jesuits' snares.'
'I am loth to leave you, sir,' Humphrey said, 'yet I feel bound to do what in me lies to rescue this boy. A goodly child he is, full of spirit, and, though wild at times as a young colt, obedient to his mother. Alack!' Humphrey continued, 'his poor bereft mother. Would to God I knew how to comfort her.'
It was then arranged that Humphrey should set off, without loss of time, for Penshurst, stopping at Tunbridge on the road to institute inquiries there.
George Ratcliffe was also returning home with several horses which had been over-strained in the tourney of the day before, and both brothers left London together, with Ned on the baggage horse with the serving-man, before noon, George scarcely less heavy-hearted than Humphrey, and too much absorbed in his own troubles to be alive to his brother's. What was the loss of little Ambrose when compared with the utter hopelessness he felt about Lucy.
George rode moodily by his brother's side, scarcely heeding what he saw, and torturing himself with the careless indifference with which Lucy had treated him.
He had asked her to come to his mother's lodgings, and she had refused, saying,—
'You have Mistress Dorothy here, you cannot want me. Besides, I am under orders, and Crawley must be obeyed.'