'Nay, I know not, my lord. I know nothing of the matter.'
'Why say'st it then? Take heed to thy words, Tom. Who then, thinkest thou, did lock the door upon her?'
'I know not, my lord, and dare hardly say what I think. But let your lordship's wisdom determine whether it might not be one of those demons whereof the house hath been full ever since that night when I saw them rise from the water of the moat—that even now surrounds us, my lord!—and rush into the fountain court.'
'Meddle thou not, even in thy thoughts, with things that are beyond thee,' said lord Herbert. 'By what signs knewest thou mistress Dorothy in the dark as she stood talking to the roundhead?'
'There was light enough to know woman from man, my lord.'
'And were there then that night no women in the castle but mistress
Dorothy?'
'Why, who else could it have been, my lord?'
'Why not thine own mother, Tom—rode thither on her broomstick to deliver her darling?'
Tom gaped with fresh terror at the awful suggestion.
'Now, hear me, Thomas Rees,' his lordship went on.