time. His uncharitableness might be excused by the fact
that he viewed it as an immediate possibility that the Prince of Parma
might any day enter the Humber, when he would assuredly be burnt alive,
and Oil-of-Gladness exposed to the fate of the children of Haarlem.

Then he added, "I grieved to hear that you and your household were so
much exposed to the witchcrafts of that same woman, sir."

"I hope she hath done them little hurt," said Richard.

"Is it true," he added, "that the woman hath laid claim to the young
lady now here as a kinswoman?"

"It is true," said Richard, "but how hath it come to your knowledge, my
good friend? I deemed it known to none out of our house; not even the
Earl and Countess guess that she is no child of ours."

"Nay, Mr. Talbot, is it well to go on in a deceit?"

"Call it rather a concealment," said Richard. "We have doubted it
since, but when we began, it was merely that there was none to whom it
seemed needful to explain that the babe was not the little daughter we
buried here. But how did you learn it? It imports to know."

"Sir, do you remember your old servant Colet, Gervas's wife? It will
be three years next Whitsuntide that hearing a great outcry as of a
woman maltreated as I passed in the street, I made my way into the
house and found Gervas verily beating his wife with a broomstick. After
I had rebuked him and caused him to desist, I asked him the cause, and
he declared it to be that his wife had been gadding to a stinking
Papist fellow, who would be sure to do a mischief to his noble captain,
Mr. Talbot. Thereupon Colet declares that she had done no harm, the
gentleman wist all before. She knew him again for the captain's
kinsman who was in the house the day that the captain brought home the
babe."

"Cuthbert Langston!"

"Even so, sir. It seems that he had been with this woman, and
questioned her closely on all she remembered of the child, learning
from her what I never knew before, that there were marks branded on her
shoulders and a letter sewn in her clothes. Was it so, sir?"

"Ay, but my wife and I thought that even Colet had never seen them."

"Nothing can escape a woman, sir. This man drew all from her by
assuring her that the maiden belonged to some great folk, and was even
akin to the King and Queen of Scots, and that she might have some great
reward if she told her story to them. She even sold him some three or
four gold and ivory beads which she