"Nay, 'tis not goodness alone—"
And she finished with a look straight and deep into his eyes. He seized her hand, and kissed it fervently.
"And thou'lt wait?" he whispered.
"Forever, if need!—but let it not be so long."
With his free hand, he grasped Kit Bottle's, and wrung from the old soldier a husky "God bless thee, boy!" Then he spurred forward in the direction silently pointed out by Anthony. At a bend of the street, he turned in his saddle, and cast a look back. His friends were motionless upon their horses, gazing after him with saddened, softened faces. A slight movement of Mistress Hazlehurst's gloved hand, and his horse had carried him from the scene; but he bore that scene ever in his heart's eye, day and night, to the coast, which, thanks to his good start and tireless riding, he reached uncaught; over sea to France, where Anthony soon brought him into sight of Sir Valentine Fleetwood, who had arrived at Dieppe not a day sooner than Hal had disembarked at Boulogne; in Paris, where Hal got an honorable post in a great man's household through the influence of Sir Valentine's wife,—for it turned out that the knight, unknown to Queen Elizabeth, had a wife, after all, a French lady whose virtue and beauty easily explained her husband's willingness to save his life at another's risk.
She was of great wealth, and, it happened, of equal gratitude; whence it fell out that, when Master Marryott returned to England, after the accession of King James, he came as owner of an estate previously purchased in his name by Anthony Underhill; an estate sold by the crown, under confiscation,—no other estate, in fact, than that pertaining to Foxby Hall, in Yorkshire.
Now it had come out that Mistress Hazlehurst's brother, before getting himself killed by Sir Valentine Fleetwood, had overladen his estate with debt, and, in conspiracy with his sister's man of business, had made way with her portion also. When the courts of law had finally established beyond doubt that she was penniless, Master Marryott was about returning to his own country, fully informed, by Anne's correspondence, of the state of her affairs. So there was afforded the unique spectacle of a lady who had remained unmarried while she was supposably an heiress, obtaining a husband the moment she was shown to be a beggar.