thought, that she scarce heard a step approaching, till the unwelcome sound of “Fair greeting to you, Lady Agnes” caused her to look up and behold the still more unwelcome form of Sir Leonard Ashton.  To escape from him was the first idea, for his clownish manners, always unpleasant to her, had become doubly so, since he had presumed upon her brother’s favour to offer to her addresses from which she saw no escape; and with a brief reply of “Thanks for your courtesy, Sir Knight,” she was about to rise and mingle with the rest of the party, when he proceeded, bluntly, “Lady Agnes, will you do me a favour?”

“I know of no favour in my power,” said she.

“Nay,” he said, “it is easily done, and it is as much to your brother as to myself.  It is a letter which, methinks, Fulk would not have read out of the family, of which I may call myself one,” and he gave a sort of smirk at Agnes;—­“but he writes so crabbedly, that I, for one, cannot read two lines,—­and I would not willingly give it to a clerk, who might be less secret.  So methought, as ’twas the Baron’s affair, I would even bring it here, and profit by your Convent-breeding, Lady Agnes.”

Agnes took the letter, and began to read:—­

  “For the hand of the Right Noble and Worshipful Knight, Sir
  Leonard Ashton, at the court of my Lord the Prince of Wales,
  these:—­

“Fair Sir, and brother-in-arms—­I hereby do you to wit, that the affair whereof we spoke goes well.  Both my Lord of Pembroke, and Sir John Chandos, readily undertook to move the Prince to grant the Banneret you wot of the government of the Castle, and as he hath never forgotten the love he once bore to his brother, he will the more easily be persuaded.  Of the garrison we are sure, and all that is now needful is, that the one-eyed Squire, whereof you spoke to me, should receive warning before he arrives at the Castle.

“Tell him to choose his time, and manage matters so that there
may be no putting to ransom.  He will understand my meaning. 
“Greeting you well, therefore,
“Fulk, Baron of Clarenham.”

“What means this?” exclaimed Agnes, as a tissue of treachery opened before her eyes.

“Ay, that you may say,” said Leonard, his slow brain only fixed upon Fulk’s involved sentences, and utterly unconscious of the horror expressed in her tone.  “How is a man to understand what he would have me to do?  Send to Le Borgne Basque at Chateau Norbelle?  Is that it?  Read it to me once again, Lady, for the love of the Saints.  What am I to tell Le Borgne Basque?  No putting to ransom, doth he say?  He might be secure enough for that matter—­Eustace Lynwood is little like to ransom himself.”

“But what mean you?” said Agnes, eagerly hoping that she had done her brother injustice in her first horrible thought.  “Sir Eustace Lynwood, if you spake of him, is no prisoner, but is here at Bordeaux.”