I know not if he prayed, or what he did. But presently, when he came back to bed, he lay very still and cold, and when we rose in the morning never a word spake either of us of what had passed that night.
But, as I expected, we were none the better friends for all that. For though he durst never lift his voice in my hearing again, he scowled at me under his brows, and, as I suppose, wished he had done what he tried to do that night. I found it best to let him be, even when he made up to Jeannette, which happened but seldom, and then little to his comfort. But when, after a month or more, his articles being ended, he took his hat and left the shop for good, I was not surprised, nor were my master or mistress over-much cast down.
As for me, I had a shrewd guess Peter Stoupe had not yet done with me.
All went happily, then, in the house without Temple Bar. Only my little mistress held me off more than she had been wont, and was graver with me. Yet it was happiness to see she counted somewhat on my company, and scorned not to ask my arm whenever she needed its help.
Often and often she made me tell her of my journeyings, and of Ludar and the maiden. And her bright eyes would glisten as she heard how they were parted and what they had suffered for one another. And she longed to see both, and was ever wondering where they were and how they fared. But the spring wore into summer, and the summer grew towards autumn, before a word of news came.
Then one Sunday, Will Peake, my old adversary, walked into the shop with a monstrous letter in his hand, tied round with blue silk and sealed black at either end.
I had seen Will often since I came back to London, but had always forgotten to tell him, that when I was put to it to advise Ludar where he might hear of me, I had told him to send to my brother ’prentice on London Bridge, who, if any, might be counted on to know where I was to be found.
So now, when a letter was come, Will was vastly wroth that he should be mixed up in the matter, and needed much satisfying that ’twas a sign of friendship and nothing else that made me give his name, he being—as I told him—the only trusty man of my acquaintance in London.
“I like it not, Humphrey Dexter,” said he, tossing down the letter. “The air is full of treason. Only to-day there is talk in the city of some new conspiracy in the North, and ’tis not safe to get a missive from so much as your lady-love. There, take it. I am rid of it; and, hark you, let no man know I had it in my fingers. Farewell.”
The letter was in a great and notable hand, which, I was sure, did not belong to Ludar. Yet it was addressed: