"Most gladly—but how?" he asked.
"Will you leave kissing forever," she demanded with great severity, "if I do put you in the way to make amends?"
"Ay, that, and more!" he cried, in reckless penitence, "do but show me the way."
"Nay, softly," she answered. "'T will take three at least, and one of them a woman of a very pretty wit, even if I be not mistaken, to undo the mischief one witless man can work with this same foolish kissing."
"Have done with your gibes!" said De Rondiniacque angrily. "I would not kiss you again if you asked it." For which discourtesy Mistress Prue deferred her revenge, thinking, as she has told me, that it was but his sorrow and zeal of penitence made the gentleman speak so unmannerly.
"Hark then to me," she said. "As I stood there by the door, where I could hear all and see not a little, after that the Prince had said they would walk a turn in the garden, and while they were taking away poor Mr. Royston a prisoner, the sour-faced man in black drew the Prince aside so that they almost touched the curtain that hid me. And there for a little space they stood, talking soft and low. What is he—the surly one, I mean, that had the papers?"
"That is Mr. Bentinck," replied De Rondiniacque, with some impatience. "Well, what said they?"
"The Prince was minded that Sir Michael spoke truth, but the man in black that they must use all means to lay hands on the priest; he said, too, that in his letter was a paper with every mark of this priest's person, so as it might be his very portrait cunningly painted; and he said that he cared not a groat for Sir Michael, nor for poor Mr. Royston, so he might come at the priest. They are mightily in love with this priest, Mr. Mar-all, and I do think——"
"Did you hear his description?" interrupted De Rondiniacque. "Did Bentinck read it to the Prince?"
"They should do that in the air, said the Prince. And as they went I saw how this Mr. Benting, as you call him, did search among the papers in his hands as if he had lost one of them. And 't is little wonder," added she, "that he could not find it, for His Highness's great boot had it fast under heel the while they talked; and to that heel it stuck for three good strides of their passage to the other door. See the mark of his tread." And she showed him the paper she had found, with its impress of a muddy heel. "And I do think," said Prudence, "that it is, perhaps, by the grace of God, that same paper that tells of this priest's person."