"No good! I'll be sworn!" Master Bertie replied, gazing at her eagerly. "Read it aloud, Katherine."
"'To Mistress A---- B----. I am advertised by my trusty agent, Master Clarence, that he hath benefited much by your aid in the matter in which I have employed him. Such service goeth always for much, and never for naught, with me. In which belief confirm yourself. For the present, working with him as heretofore, be secret, and on no account let your true sentiments come to light. So you will be the more valuable to me, even as it is more easy to unfasten a barred door from within than from without.'"
Here the Duchess broke off abruptly, and turned on us a face full of wonder. "What does it mean?" she asked.
"Is that all?" her husband said.
"Not quite," she answered, returning to it, and reading:
"'Those whom you have hitherto served have too long made a mockery of sacred things, but their cup is full and the business of seeing that they drink it lieth with me, who am not wont to be slothful in these matters. Be faithful and secret. Good speed and fare you well.--Ste. Winton."
"One thing is quite clear!" said Master Bertie slowly. "That you and I are the persons whose cup is full. You remember how you once dressed up a dog in a rochet, and dandled it before Gardiner? And it is our matter in which Clarence is employed. Then who is it who has been cooperating with him, and whose aid is of so much value to him?"
"'Even as it is easier,'" I muttered thoughtfully, "'to unfasten a barred door from within than from without." What was it of which that strange sentence reminded me? Ha! I had it. Of the night on which we had fled from Master Lindstrom's house, when Mistress Anne had been seized with that odd fit of perverseness, and had almost opened the door looking upon the river in spite of all I could say or do. It was of that the sentence reminded me. "To whom is it addressed?" I asked abruptly.
"To Mistress Clarence," my lady answered.
"No; inside, I mean."