“To the stable, Mistress,” answered the servant.  “Sir Malcolm says he will go with you.”

Dorothy’s joyousness vanished.  From radiant brightness her expression changed in the twinkling of an eye to a look of disappointment so sorrowful that I at once knew there was some great reason why she did not wish me to ride with her.  I could not divine the reason, neither did I try.  I quickly said to Thomas:—­

“Do not bring my horse.  If Mistress Vernon will excuse me, I shall not ride with her this morning.  I forgot for the moment that I had not breakfasted.”

Again came to Dorothy’s face the radiant look of joy as if to affirm what it had already told me.  I looked toward Thomas, and his eyes, too, were alight.  I could make nothing of it.  Thomas was a fine-looking fellow, notwithstanding his preposterous hair and beard; but I felt sure there could be no understanding between the man and his mistress.

When Thomas and Dorothy had mounted, she timidly ventured to say:—­

“We are sorry, Cousin Malcolm, that you cannot ride with us.”

She did not give me an opportunity to change my mind, but struck Dolcy a sharp blow with her whip that sent the spirited mare galloping toward the dove-cote, and Thomas quickly followed at a respectful distance.  From the dove-cote Dorothy took the path down the Wye toward Rowsley.  I, of course, connected her strange conduct with John.  When a young woman who is well balanced physically, mentally, and morally acts in a strange, unusual manner, you may depend on it there is a man somewhere behind her motive.

I knew that John was in London.  Only the night before I had received word from Rutland Castle that he had not returned, and that he was not expected home for many days.

So I concluded that John could not be behind my fair cousin’s motive.  I tried to stop guessing at the riddle Dorothy had set me, but my effort was useless.  I wondered and thought and guessed, but I brought to myself only the answer, “Great is the mystery of womanhood.”

After Dorothy had ridden away I again climbed to the top of Eagle Tower and saw the riders cross the Wye at Dorothy’s former fording-place, and take the wall.  I then did a thing that fills me with shame when I think of it.  For the only time in my whole life I acted the part of a spy.  I hurried to Bowling Green Gate, and horror upon horror, there I beheld my cousin Dorothy in the arms of Thomas, the man-servant.  I do not know why the truth of Thomas’s identity did not dawn upon me, but it did not, and I stole away from the gate, thinking that Dorothy, after all, was no better than the other women I had known at various times in my life, and I resolved to tell John what I had seen.  You must remember that the women I had known were of the courts of Mary Stuart and of Guise, and the less we say about them the better.  God pity them!  Prior to my acquaintance with Dorothy and Madge I had always considered a man to be a fool who would put his faith in womankind.  To me women were as good as men,—­no better, no worse.  But with my knowledge of those two girls there had grown up in me a faith in woman’s virtue which in my opinion is man’s greatest comforter; the lack of it his greatest torment.