'He said he would fain see little Ambrose, and bid me bring him to the stile where he met me, that he might look at him. He said he would call a curse down on me if I refused. He looked dreadful as he spoke. And then George came. But, Mary—'
For Mary had sprung to her feet, and, with hands clasped and eyes dilated with terror, she stood like one struck down by some sudden blow.
'Promise, swear, Lucy, you will never take the child outside the fence on the hill side. Swear, Lucy.'
Lucy was frightened by her sister's vehemence, and said,—
'Yes, I promise. Oh, Mary, do not look like that. Do you know the man?'
'Know him! know him! Nay. How should I?' Then she said, after a pause, 'Hush! we shall wake the boy. Let us talk no more to-night. Go to your bed, child; it is late, and to-morrow—yes, to-morrow is Sunday—I will go down with you to the church, and await my Lady Pembroke by the lych gate, and you shall have your desire, and God keep you, and bless you.'
Lucy quickly recovered her spirits; her heart was too full of delighted anticipation to have room for any prolonged fear about her sister, though her pale, terror-struck face, seen in the twilight, and her agonised appeal to her to swear what she asked, made her say, as she lay down on her low truckle bed in the little attic chamber next her sister's,—
'Sure Mary must know something of that man. Perhaps he was a boon companion of her wicked husband. Ah, me! it would be a different world if all men were brave and good and noble like—'
Before the name had taken shape on her lips, Lucy was asleep, and in her dreams there were no dark strangers with cruel black eyes and sinister smiles, but goodly knights, in glistening armour, riding out against their adversaries, and goodlier and nobler than the rest, before whose lance all others fell, while the air rang with the shouts of victory, was Mr Philip Sidney.