Then there was a pause, the woman's head was withdrawn, and Humphrey's ear, quickened by love, heard Mary's voice in pathetic pleading. Presently the head re-appeared.
'Mistress Gifford says, "Do you bring news?"'
'I would fain see her, if possible. I cannot speak of such matters here.'
'Then you must wait till the morrow, nor parley any longer.'
The casement was shut with a sharp click, and there was nothing left for Humphrey but to pursue his way to his own home, whither George—who had parted from him at Tunbridge—and his servants had preceded him earlier in the day.
Mary Gifford lay sleepless and restless all through the long hours of the night, watching for the dawn. She longed, and yet half dreaded her meeting with Humphrey. She felt so utterly weak and broken-hearted, so forlorn and deserted—what if he again urged his suit!—what if she had now to tell him what had been at their last interview only a probability, and was now a certainty! Her husband was no vague, shadowy personality; he was alive and strong, to work for her the greatest evil that could befall her in stealing her boy from her.
When Mistress Forrester came in, on her way to the dairy, to see how it fared with Mary, she found her, to her surprise, dressed, while Goody Pearse was snoring peacefully on the pallet bed, where Ambrose had slept near his mother.
'Dear heart! Mary Gifford, what do you mean by getting up like this? I thought, forsooth, you were so sick you had need of a nurse, to take a few more shillings out of my pocket, and here you are at five o'clock, up and spry. Well-a-day, I never did come to the bottom of you. Deep waters, they say, make no noise.'
Mary had braced herself to bear anything and everything, and was strangely unmoved by her stepmother's innuendoes, of which she took no notice, and only said, in a gentle voice,—
'Is Ned astir yet?'