In due course Thomas Bolle was found fast asleep in a neighbour’s house, for after his adventures and triumph he had drunk hard and rested long.  When she discovered the truth Emlyn rated him well, calling him a beer-tub and not a man, and many other hard names, till at last she provoked him to answer, that had it not been for the said beer-tub she would be but ash-dust this day.  Thereon she turned the talk and told them their needs, and that he must ride with them to London.  To this he replied that good horses should be saddled by the dawn, for he knew where to lay hands on them, since some were left in the Abbot’s stables that wanted exercise; further, that he would be glad to leave Blossholme for a while, where he had made enemies on the yesterday, whose friends yet lay wounded or unburied.  After this Emlyn whispered something in his ear, to which he nodded assent, saying that he would bustle round and be ready.

That afternoon Emlyn went out riding with Thomas Bolle, who was fully armed, as she said, to try two of the horses that should carry them on the morrow, and it was late when she returned out of the dark night.

“Have you got them?” asked Cicely, when they were together in their room.

“Aye,” she answered, “every one; but some stones have fallen, and it was hard to win an entrance to that vault.  Indeed, had it not been for Thomas Bolle, who has the strength of a bull, I could never have done it.  Moreover, the Abbot has been there before us and dug over every inch of the floor.  But the fool never thought of the wall, so all’s well.  I’ll sew half of them into my petticoat and half into yours, to share the risk.  In case of thieves, the money that hungry Visitor has left to us, for I paid him over half when you signed the deeds, we will carry openly in pouches upon our girdles.  They’ll not search further.  Oh, I forgot, I’ve something more besides the jewels, here it is,” and she produced a packet from her bosom and laid it on the table.

“What’s this?” asked Cicely, looking suspiciously at the worn sail-cloth in which it was wrapped.

“How can I tell?  Cut it and see.  All I know is that when I stood at the Nunnery door as Thomas led away the horses, a man crept on me out of the rain swathed in a great cloak and asked if I were not Emlyn Stower.  I said Yea, whereon he thrust this into my hand, bidding me not fail to give it to the Lady Harflete, and was gone.”

“It has an over-seas look about it,” murmured Cicely, as with eager, trembling fingers she cut the stitches.  At length they were undone and a sealed inner wrapping also, revealing, amongst other documents, a little packet of parchments covered with crabbed, unreadable writing, on the back of which, however, they could decipher the names of Shefton and Blossholme by reason of the larger letters in which they were engrossed.  Also there was a writing in the scrawling hand of Sir John Foterell, and at the foot of it his name and, amongst others, those of Father Necton and of Jeffrey Stokes.  Cicely stared at the deeds, then said—­