s much concerning Philoclea that we shall expunge.
But that time of retirement!' Lady Pembroke said, 'it seems a mockery to
speak of it, now that the chief author has just left us to plunge into the
very thick of the battle of life.'

'I am well pleased,' Sir Fulke said, 'that Sir Philip should have so able a
secretary at his elbow--Mr William Temple. The scholar's element will be a
refreshment to Philip when the cares of government press heavily. Mr
William Temple's _Dialectics_ is dedicated, with no empty profession of
respect and affection, to one who has ever been his friend. Forsooth,' Sir
Fulke Greville said, 'friends, true and loyal to your brother, Madam, are
as numerous as the leaves that rustle under our feet.'

'Yes,' Lady Pembroke said; 'that is a consoling thought; and he goes to
friends, if one may judge by the terms Count Maurice of Nassau writes of
him to the English Ambassador, Master Davison. My father has shown me a
copy of that letter, which speaks of Philip as his noble brother, and
honoured companion-in-arms.'

'How proud one of the chiefest of the friends you speak of would be could
he know that Philip is gone forth to wage war against Spain.'

'Good Hubert Languet! I always think no man in his first youth had ever a
truer and more faithful counsellor than Philip possessed in that noble old
Huguenot. And how he loved him, and mourned his loss!'

The big bell was now sounding for the mid-day dinner, and Lady Pembroke
said,--

'However unwillingly, we must break off our converse now. You will write to
me if you repair to Flushing; or you will find a welcome at Wilton on any
day when you would fain bend your steps thither. Philip's friend must needs
be mine.'

'A double honour I cannot rate too highly,' was the reply. 'I will ever do
my best to prove worthy of it.'

CHAPTER XII

FIRE AND SWORD

'What love hath wrought
Is dearly bought.'--_Old Song_, 1596.

Mary Gifford had found a quiet resting-place in the house of her husband's
uncle, Master George Gifford, at Arnhem, and here, from time to time, she
was visited by Humphrey Ratcliffe, who, in all the tumult of the war, kept
well in view the quest for Mary's lost son.

Again and again hope had been raised that he was in one of the Popish
centres which were scattered over the Low Countries.

Once Mary had been taken, under Humphrey's care, to watch before the gates
of a retired house in a village near Arnhem, whence t