'Your grandmother's life?' I asked wonderingly. 'When? Where?'
'I have heard about you since you came here, from the servants, and I think you must be the lady,' continued the lad slowly. 'It was many weeks ago, not very far from Horsham. Wicked men made out that my grandmother was a witch and drowned her. My dear old grandmother!' he sobbed. 'But you tried to save her life.'
'Was she your grandmother?' asked I, thinking of the so-called witch, who had implored me frantically to save her.
'Yes, lady. She was one of the best of women,' answered Saul sorrowfully. 'I knew it was you,' he added, 'who was so good to her, because he who told me all about it said that the lady who tried to save her looked like an angel, with hair of gold, a face like pink wild roses and eyes like big speedwells. Your face is rather too white, but the other part of you answers to the description exactly.'
'I certainly tried to protect a poor old woman from her wicked enemies,' said I; 'and I remember now one of the charges against her was that she had done away with her own grandson. I suppose that was you?'
'Yes, lady. And it was a wicked lie. My master it was who stole me away from home and brought me here to be his slave and turnkey. I hate him. He is cruel as death. He has a gallows, and he kills people without any trial, or with only a mock trial.'
'Terrible!' I exclaimed, and was just beginning to ask questions about Sir Hubert when footsteps were to be heard returning, and Saul whispered—
'I will try to save you, for the sake of what you did for my dear, good grandmother——' he broke off, for, alas! he had said too much.
'Dog!' cried Sir Claudius, kicking him so brutally that the poor lad fell upon his knees with a cry of pain.
'You do that in my presence!' exclaimed I. 'And yet you profess to love me?'