thrown an arm around the neck of Sir Humphrey's mare,
and was talking to her in such dulcet tones as her lovers would have
died for the sake of hearing in their ears.

"Have no fears for her safety," I whispered back. "So far as the
goods go, there is no more danger."

"What did you, Harry?"

"Sir Humphrey," I whispered back, while Mary's sweet voice in the
mare's delicate ear sounded like a song, "sometimes an unguessed
riddle hath less weight than a guessed one, and some fish of
knowledge had best be left in the stream. I tell thee she is safe."
So saying, I looked him full in his honest, boyish face, which was
good to see, though sometime I wished, for the maid's sake, that it
had more shrewdness of wit in it. Then he gave me a great grasp of
the hand, and whispered something hoarsely. "Thou art a good fellow,
Harry, in spite of, in spite of--" then he bent low over Mary's
hand for the second time, and sprang to his saddle, and was off
toward Jamestown on his white mare, flashing along the moonlit road
like a whiter moonbeam.

Then Mary came close to me, and did what she had never before done
since she was a child. She laid her little hand on my arm of her own
accord. "Master Wingfield," said she, softly, "what about the goods?"

"The goods for which you sent to England are yours and in the great
house," said I, and I heard my voice tremble.

She drew her hand away and stood looking at me, and her sweet
forehead under her golden curls was all knitted with perplexity.

"You know, you know I--lied," she whispered like a guilty child.

"You cannot lie," I answered, "and the goods are yours."

"And not my Lady Culpeper's?"

"And not my Lady Culpeper's."

Mary continued looking at me, then all at once her forehead cleared.

"Catherine, 'twas Catherine," she cried out. "She said not, but well
I know her; she would not own to it--the sweetheart. Sure a
falsehood to hide a loving deed is the best truth of the world.
'Twas Catherine, 'twas Catherine, the sweetheart, the darling. She
sent for naught for herself, and hath been saving for a year's time
and maybe sold a ring or two. Somehow she discovered about the plot,
what I had done. And she hath heard me say, that I know well, that I
thought 'twas a noble list of Lady Culpeper's, and I wished I were a
governor's wife or daughter, that I could have such fine things. I
remember me well that I told her thus before ever the Golden Horn
sailed for England, that ti