“You can say what you will,” she said, “before my aunt.  She is of our mind in these matters.”

Then they were in the room; a couple of candles burned on a table before the curtained window; and an old lady with a wrinkled kindly face hobbled over from her chair and greeted the two travellers.

“I welcome you, gentlemen,” she said, “if a sore heart may say so to sore hearts.”

There was no news of Nicholas, they were told; he had not been heard of.

* * * * *

They heard the story so far as Beatrice knew it; but it was softened for their ears.  She had found Ralph, she said, hesitating what to do.  He had been plainly bewildered by the sudden news; they had talked a while; and then he had handed her the papers to burn.  The magistrate sent by the Council had arrived to find the ashes still smoking.  He had questioned Ralph sharply, for he had come with authority behind him; and Ralph had refused to speak beyond telling him that the bundles lying on the floor were all the papers of my Lord Essex that were in his possession.  They had laid hands on these, and then searched the room.  A quantity of ashes, Beatrice said, had fallen from behind a portrait over the hearth when they had shifted it.  Then the magistrate had questioned her too, enquired where she lived, and let her go.  She had waited at the corner of the street, and watched the men come out.  Ralph walked in the centre as a prisoner.  She had followed them to the river; had mixed with the crowd that gathered there; and had heard the order given to the wherryman to pull to the Tower.  That was all that she knew.

“Thank God for your son, sir.  He bore himself gallantly.”

There was a silence as she ended.  The old man looked at her wondering and dazed.  It was so sad, that the news scarcely yet conveyed its message.

“And my Lord Essex?” he said.

“My Lord is in the Tower too.  He was arrested at the Council by the Duke of Norfolk.”

The old lady intervened then, and insisted on their going down to supper.  It would be ready by now, she said, in the parlour downstairs.

They supped, themselves silent, with Beatrice leaning her arms on the table, and talking to them in a low voice, telling them all that was said.  She did not attempt to prophesy smoothly.  The feeling against Cromwell, she said, passed all belief.  The streets had been filled with a roaring crowd last night.  She had heard them bellowing till long after dark.  The bells were pealed in the City churches hour after hour, in triumph over the minister’s fall.

“The dogs!” she said fiercely.  “I never thought to say it, but my heart goes out to him.”

Her spirit was infections.  Chris felt a kind of half-joyful recklessness tingle in his veins, as he listened to her talk, and watched her black eyes hot with indignation and firm with purpose.  What if Ralph were cast?  At least it was for faithfulness—­of a kind.  Even the father’s face grew steadier; that piteous trembling of the lower lip ceased, and the horror left his eyes.  It was hard to remain in panic with that girl beside them.