mother," said Cicely. "Humfrey will not bear me ill-will
if I say that while there can still be any hope that Queen Elizabeth
will accept me for her prisoner in your stead, I neither can nor ought
to wed him."

"Thou mayst safely accept the condition, my son," said Mary.

"Then if these messengers should come to conduct my mother abroad, and
to take me as her hostage, Humfrey will know where to find me."

"Yea, thou art a good child to the last, my little one," said Mary.

"You promise, Humfrey?" said Cicely.

"I do," he said, knowing as well as the Queen how little chance there
was that he would be called on to fulfil it, but feeling that the agony
of the parting was thus in some degree softened to Cicely.

Mary gave the betrothal ring to Humfrey, and she laid her hands on
their clasped ones. "My daughter and my son," she said, "I leave you
my blessing. If filial love and unshaken truth can bring down
blessings from above, they will be yours. Think of your mother in
times to come as one who hath erred, but suffered and repented. If
your Church permits you, pray often for her. Remember, when you hear
her blamed, that in the glare of courts, she had none to breed her up
in godly fear and simple truth like your good mother at Bridgefield,
but that she learnt to think what you view in the light of deadly sin
as the mere lawful instruments of government, above all for the weaker.
Condemn her not utterly, but pray, pray with all your hearts that her
God and Saviour will accept her penitence, and unite her sufferings
with those of her Lord, since He has done her the grace of letting her
die in part for His Church. Now," she added, kissing each brow, and
then holding her daughter in her embrace, "take her away, Humfrey, and
let me turn my soul from all earthly loves and cares!"

CHAPTER XLIV.

ON THE HUMBER.

Master Talbot had done considerately in arranging that Cicely should at
least begin her journey on a pillion behind himself, for her anguish of
suppressed weeping unfitted her to guide a horse, and would have
attracted the attention of any serving-man behind whom he could have
placed her, whereas she could lay her head against his shoulder, and
feel a kind of dreary repose there.

He would have gone by the more direct way to Hull, through Lincoln, but
that he feared that February Filldyke would have rendered the fens
impassable, so he directed his course more to the north-west. Cicely
was silen