Just then a woman's voice was heard calling from the house, "Mistress Millicent, where art thou?"
"'Tis Lettice, my mother's woman," whispered the girl, quickly. "I must in. I have come out for this bunch of apple-blossoms. Some other time we'll talk—perhaps."
Without another word she ran from the garden.
The captain snapped his pipe in two, and flung the pieces to the ground; then turned toward the evening sky, in which a numerous company of stars now twinkled, a face bitter with self-loathing.
"I am a beast," he hissed; "a slave, a scavenger, a raker of rags, fit company for the dead curs in Houndsditch. Foh! but, by God's light and by this hand, I swear—"
He raised his hand toward the stars, and finished his oath, whatever it was, in thought, not in speech. Then, suddenly resuming his former mien, he turned and walked rapidly into the house.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
SIR PEREGRINE MEDWAY.