For a while Emlyn held out against her, for she knew the dangers of such a meeting; but in the end, being able to refuse her lady nothing, she gave way.

At length at the appointed hour of sunset Emlyn and Cicely stood in the chapel, whither the latter told the nuns she wished to go to return thanks for her deliverance from many dangers.  They knelt before the altar, and while they made pretence to pray there heard knocks, which were the signal of the presence of Thomas Bolle.  Emlyn answered them with other knocks, which told that all was safe, whereon the wooden image turned and Thomas appeared, dressed as before in Sir John Foterell’s armour.  So like did he seem to her dead father in this familiar mail that for a moment Cicely thought it must be he, and her knees trembled until he knelt before her, kissing her hand, asking after her health and that of the infant and whether she were satisfied with his service.

“Indeed and indeed yes,” she answered; “and oh, friend! all that I have henceforth is yours should I ever have anything again, who am but a prisoned beggar.  Meanwhile, my blessing and that of Heaven rest upon you, you gallant man.”

“Thank me not, Lady,” answered the honest Thomas.  “To speak truth it was Emlyn whom I served, for though monks parted us we have been friends for many a year.  As for the matter of the child and that spawn of hell, the Flounder, be grateful to God, not to me, for it was by mere chance that I came here that evening, which I had not intended to do.  I was going about my business with the cattle when something seemed to tell me to arm and come.  It was as though a hand pushed me, and the rest you know, and so I think by now does Mother Megges,” he added grimly.

“Yes, yes, Thomas; and in truth I do thank God, Whose finger I see in all this business, as I thank you, His instrument.  But there are other things whereof Emlyn has spoken to me.  She said—­ah! she said my husband, whom I thought slain and buried, in truth was only wounded and not buried, but shipped over-sea.  Tell me that story, friend, omitting nothing, but swiftly for our time is short.  I thirst to hear it from your own lips.”

So in his slow, wandering way he told her, word by word, all that he had seen, all that he had learned, and the sum of it was that Sir Christopher had been shipped abroad upon the Great Yarmouth, sorely wounded but not dead, and that with him had sailed Jeffrey Stokes and the monk Martin.

“That’s ten months gone,” said Cicely.  “Has naught been heard of this ship?  By now she should be home again.”

Thomas hesitated, then answered—­

“No tidings came of her from Spain.  Then, although I said nothing of it even to Emlyn, she was reported lost with all hands at sea.  Then came another story——­”

“Ah! that other story?”