“You seem not over-anxious to hear tidings of your lover,” he said mockingly; “yet it may be that you will presently find it difficult to get any more.”
Something in his manner, more than his words, drove the blood to her heart. What had this wretch done? Where was Simon Raby? Yet so little was she like other women that she forbore to cry out or ask a question. She sat her horse like a statue, her face white and her great dark eyes fixed on her tormentor. She scorned him, scorned even his power to injure her, and he saw it and hated her the more; for between this wild passion, that such men call love, and hatred there is but a single step. Her beauty set his blood on fire, her scorn of him awoke every evil impulse in his breast and made him long to humble her.
“So,” he said, with keen anticipation of the pain he had in store for her, “you have no questions to ask, and Simon Raby’s fate is a matter of indifference to you? ’Tis well; it would be a shame to spoil those bright eyes with tears—even for a lover.”
She set her teeth and struck her horse upon the flank; the animal plunged, but Henge held him yet. She looked back wildly for aid, but she could not see her uncle. What folly had made her ride on alone?
“Well, well, I must tell you,” Henge said, smiling in evil triumph, “since you are too shy to ask. Lord Raby is in the Tower.”
She knew the man to be a villain, yet something in his manner convinced her that he spoke the truth. Raby’s long absence was explained, and a chill of horror crept over her, but her pride sustained her resolution.
“He was taken the day he left you here,” continued Henge, a little baffled by her manner and her silence; “he is charged with high treason and is like to suffer for his sins. All these years he has but fawned upon the king’s grace to betray him. A traitor and a pretty rogue, this lover of yours, Mistress Carew!”
Wrath overcame Mistress Betty’s womanly fears; in her right hand she held a stout whip, and she sat upright in her saddle, looking like a beautiful young fury.
“You knave!” she cried; “you lying knave!” and she struck him full across the face, below the eyes, with such sudden violence that he relaxed his hold, and her horse plunging, set her free, and dashed away across the field, while Sir Barton Henge stood staring after her, a curse upon his lips and on his face the great red welt that followed her lash. And she, riding to the house, dismounted, and running into the hall, fell on her knees before old Madam, and hiding her face in her lap, cried out that Simon Raby was in the Tower.
“Yea, I know,” said my lady, calmly, “and they have taken the wizard, Zachary Sanders; ’tis a pretty mess. Come, my wench, tears will not mend the matter nor unlock the jail.”