“Thine enemy?” said the woman curiously. “How now, mistress? Tell me the tale. ’Twill speed the hour and, forsooth, there is need of entertainment here.”
Thus adjured Francis related the story of the shooting of the deer; the incident of the duel; spoke of the enmity that had always existed between the families of Staffords and Devereaux; narrated how Edward had favored her when the Lady Priscilla Rutland had stolen her hair; concluding with:
“Therefore, thou seest, good Mistress Shelton, that there can be naught but enmity betwixt us twain. He hath done me service, ’tis true, and otherwise is a proper youth, I dare say. Yet still he is mine enemy.”
“‘Yet still he is mine enemy,’” mocked Mrs. Shelton. “Marry, girl! ’Tis marvelous hate that thou showest when thou dost call to him when he hath been brought into 278 durance. ‘Yet still he is mine enemy.’” She laughed.
“Make merry, an ye will, mistress,” said Francis, “but still is it as I tell ye.”
“There, child! I meant not to vex thee,” appeased the woman who had grown fond of Francis, so long had she been in her keeping. “I must learn more of the lad.”
“Do find why he hath been committed,” cried the girl eagerly. “I can but wonder at it. Hath he too been engaged in treasonable enterprise——”
“Nay;” interrupted Mrs. Shelton, “for then he would have entered under the tower of St. Thomas through the Traitor’s Gate.”
In a few days she reported to Francis that the charge against him was a nominal one. He seemed to be committed only to be restrained of his liberty and was given the privilege of the Tower, wandering through the wards at pleasure save only that he could not pass the outer walls of the fortress.
And so it happened one day that when Francis, attended by Mrs. Shelton, was taking the air in the lieutenant’s garden Edward Devereaux chanced to be walking there also. 279 Seeing them he doffed his bonnet and approached, deferentially speaking to Mrs. Shelton: