“Help! Help!” cried the lady and the maids simultaneously, for the lamp which was of the simplest manufacture, being a wick fed by oil, set fire instantly to the curls and surrounding rushes. Scattering to the right and left the maids called lustily: “Fire! Fire! Seize the boy!”
Staying only long enough to see that there was no probability of saving the hair, Francis dashed through the arras, and fled through chamber after chamber trying to find an exit.
“This way,” she heard a voice call as, bewildered and confused, she paused, not knowing which way to turn.
To her amazement, Edward Devereaux stood in a door of a chamber beckoning to her. She gave an exclamation of surprise but, enemy though she considered him, followed him without hesitation. Through a maze of rooms the boy led the way with the air of one to whom they were familiar; then down a flight of steps, through an open window and out upon a balcony that overlooked the great garden.
“We will conceal ourselves in the shrubbery,” he said vaulting lightly over the rail 179 into the garden below, followed closely by the girl. They stopped in the shadow of a clump of close clipped black yews. “Here we can remain,” he said, “until the hue and cry is over. What happened, Francis?”
Francis poured forth her story rapidly.
“I hate this vile court,” she cried with a burst of passionate tears as she concluded. “I want my home! Oh, I want to go home!”
“I blame you not, Francis Stafford,” said Edward Devereaux forbearing to taunt her with the fact that had she heeded his words this last misery would not have come upon her. “You feel as we all feel at times, yet are we constrained to bide here. Were it in truth to serve the queen, God bless her, there would be joy in staying. But to be at the beck and call of every noble; to bear the trains of the ladies or dance attendance upon them is not the life that a youth wishes. I pity thee, Francis, and thy plight is not so bad as it will be should yon tower burn to the ground.”
“Oh!” Francis looked up with startled eyes. “I did not think of that. It was not my intent to burn the tower. Think you that it is in danger, Edward?” 180
“Mayhap not,” answered the boy regarding the tower with anxious eyes. “We can but watch.”