"I trust it may be so," replied her father; "but yet, dear Mary, we must not forget that, long ere this Sir Simeon of Roydon uttered a word, some one unknown wrote to me the self-same tale."
"It was himself, or some one like him," answered Mary Grey.
"It could not be himself," rejoined the knight; "for he was not yet in Flanders when the letter came."
"Is there but one slanderer in the world, dear father?" replied the fair girl, raising her eyes almost reproachfully to her parent's countenance; "and should we even doubt the conduct of one whom for many a long year we have seen walk in truth and honour, because some nameless calumniator breathes a tale against him?"
"We should not," replied Sir John Grey, firmly; "yet such is the world's justice, my child, and such is, I fear, the heart of man--ready to doubt, prone to suspect, and instructed by its own weakness in the weakness of others. However, you have well pleaded your lover's cause, my Mary; and he shall have full and patient hearing to explain whatever yet remains obscure."
"Is there aught obscure?" asked Mary Grey. "To me his whole conduct seems, as it ever has been, light as day."
"Yes," answered the knight; "but yet, Mary, even while I spoke with him to-night--"
"What, is he here?" cried Mary Grey, interrupting him, and clasping her hands with eager joy; "and have you seen him--spoke with him?--How did he look, my father?--Well, but not too happy when he was away from me, I dare to say."
"Well, he certainly seemed," replied her father, with a smile; "and anything but happy, my dear child; but, as I was going to add--even while I spoke with him upon these most serious charges, a man came up and plucked him by the sleeve, beseeching him to come to Ella Brune. His whole countenance changed at the name; and, though he had fixed to meet me within two hours, he failed in his appointment. I waited for him as long as he could decently expect, and then came hither, doubting no longer that the tale was true."
Mary paused thoughtfully, and cast down her eyes; but then a moment after she raised them again with a look of relief, as if she had settled the whole in her own mind. "I will be warrant," she said, "that some great peril has beset our poor Ella, and that he has gone to deliver her: most likely the hateful persecution of this same base man. Nothing else--nothing, I know, would have kept Richard of Woodville away from Mary Grey--if, indeed, he knew that I was here."