“I know not,” was the brief reply.  After a short pause he continued—­“The wanderer has left Bolton, I learn, and, ’tis said, he bides at Whalley.”

Here he cast a furtive look at the domestics, and then at his wife, as though wishful to ascertain if others had understood this intimation.

“Nay, some do boldly affirm that he has been seen i’ these very woods,” continued he, lowering his voice to a whisper.

“Which Heaven forefend!” said the wary dame.  “I would not that he should draw us down with him to the same gulf wherein his fortune is o’erwhelmed.  No luck that woman ever brought him from o’er sea, and now she’s gone”—­

“They say that she hath escaped to Flanders,” said Oliver, hastily interrupting her.

“I wish he had been so fortunate,” said the dame; “what says our cousin Talbot?”

“Hush, dame; our plans are not yet ripe.  But more of this anon.”

Elizabeth listened with more interest than usual.  Every word was eagerly devoured, and with the last sentence she could not forbear inquiring—­

“And Edmund?—­surely Edmund Talbot is not”—­

“What?” sternly inquired her father; “what knowest thou of—?  Said I aught whereby thou shouldst suspect us?”

“Hush, thou foolish one,” said the more cautious dame; “thy thought alone was privy to it, and so no more.  There be others listening.”

The moonbeams now crept softly into the chambers, whither, too, crept the weary household; the master and his wife remaining for a short time together in the hall, apparently in earnest discussion.  But Elizabeth retired not to her couch.  She passed softly through the courtyard, looking round as though in search of some individual.  This proved to be the hunchback Gregory, whom she found esconced behind a peat-stack in marvellous profundity of thought.  With a soft step, and one finger raised to her lips, she gently tapped him upon the shoulder.

Looking round, he saw her gesture and was silent.

“Gregory, art thou honest?” she inquired, in a whisper.

“Why, an’ it be, Mistress Elspeth, when it suits with my discretion; that is, if discretion be none the worse for it, eh?”

“Thou art ever so, Gregory; and yet”—­

“If ye want honesty, eschew a knave, and catch a fool by the cap.  None but fools worry and distemper themselves with this same pale-faced whining jade, that will leave ’em i’ the lurch at a pinch, Dame Honesty, forsooth.  More wit, more wisdom; and there is a plentiful lack of wit in your honest folk,” continued the cynic, as though pursuing a train of thought to its ultimate development.

“Gregory, thou art not the rogue thee seems.  I think beneath that rough and captious speech there lurks more honesty than thou art willing to acknowledge.  Thou hast been angered with baiting until thou wouldst run at every dog that comes into the paddock, though he fawned on thee, and were never so trusty and well-behaved.”