"On the contrary, your Excellency!" quickly. "Her ladyship assured me it was the loyal and faithful sentiments of the play that caused the unruly rascallions to make trouble, and that the clown deserved no punishment, because he had intended no mischief."
"Her ladyship?" The Governor's brows went suddenly up. "How," he asked at length in a voice yet softer, "should her ladyship have known about the 'loyal and faithful sentiments' of a piece, given in the town, before a crowd of brawlers?"
"Because I was a spectator!" said his daughter, a red spot now on her cheek; changing lights in her eyes.
"A spectator?" repeated, in mild surprise, the Governor.
"I will explain—after!" she added in tones, low, constrained.
"Hum!" His Excellency's glance swept to the commandant.
"Her ladyship was so good," murmured the latter in some embarrassment and yet feeling obliged to speak, with that bright insistent gaze of the high official of the Mount fastened upon him, "as to inform me that, desiring to mingle with the people, and, knowing it might not be expedient to do so—in her own proper character—her ladyship saw fit to assume a humbler costume—that of a Norman peasant maid—"
From the Governor's lips fell an ejaculation; he seemed about to speak sternly, but the words failed on his lips; instead, "Continue!" he said curtly.
"That, I believe, is all, your Excellency, except that her ladyship expressed the desire the stupid fellow be set at liberty on the morrow, as not worth the keeping—and—"
The mountebank started, as expecting now the Lady Elise to speak; to denounce him, perhaps; but it was his Excellency who interrupted.