ew days
most unhappily filled my mind) was reported to reside, and desiring to
look upon the spot, commanded my men to rest there. Suddenly I
descried a man muffled in a cloak, proceeding up the street, who, as
he approached, proved to my astonishment to be none other than Sir
Thomas Winter. Quickly he ascended the steps and knocked at the house
opposite the place where I chanced to be. After a moment the door
opened and the figure of a girl stood on the threshold. Beholding her,
Winter exclaimed: 'A good evening to thee, Mistress Fawkes,' the rest
of the greeting being lost to me as the door closed. I was astonished
at having so quickly set before me the two whose names had been in my
mind. After a few moments the door again opened suddenly, this time I
think by accident, revealing the figure of him who had just entered,
still clad in his cloak, clasping in his arms and kissing the woman
who admitted him. I could not hear what passed, for at the time the
wind blew high, drowning their voices. But I had seen enough, and
cried to the bearers to take up the chair and proceed. That, my son,
is what I have seen, not learned by mere hearsay. Would that I could
have spared thee the telling, but 'tis for thy welfare I have narrated
it."

Effingston, during the narrative, had remained motionless, his
features drawn and colorless. Fully realizing that his father would
not have maliciously manufactured this evidence against the girl, his
mind could conceive no extenuating circumstance to clear it away. That
she had deceived him was not beyond the consent of reason. He was a
man of the world and of the time, well aware of possible duplicity,
and further, that the age offered numerous examples of women with one
hand on the cradle while the other guided an axe toward some head
which for a cause must fall, or fanatically sacrificing all, even
honor, to gain the coveted support of a courtier in some undertaking.
The scandal which had been breathed about her, to do him justice, he
did not give ear to, believing implicitly the story told by Elinor,
explaining her associations with Winter. But was not this man a
champion of the cause which he had helped to defeat? Was it impossible
that she had played her lover as a dupe to further a scheme? This was
entirely plausible, but he could not bring his mind to believe it. And
why? For the same old, old reason which has cost men their lives and
honor, kings their crowns--because he loved her.