“The goods are Mistress Mary Cavendish’s,” said I. They looked at me as I have seen folk look at a page of Virgil.

“Were they, after all, not my Lady Culpeper’s?” asked Sir Humphrey.

“They are Mistress Mary Cavendish’s,” said I.

Mary turned suddenly to Sir Humphrey. “’Tis time you were gone now, Humphrey,” she said, softly. “’Twas only last night you were here, and there is need of caution, and your mother—­”

But Humphrey was loth to go. “’Tis not late,” he said, “and I would know more of this matter.”

“You will never know more of Master Wingfield, if that is what you wait for,” she returned, with a half laugh, “and, Humphrey, your sister Cicely said but this morning that your mother was over-curious.  I pray you, go, and Master Wingfield will take me home.  I pray you, go!”

Sir Humphrey took her hand and bent low over it, and murmured something; then, before he sprang to his saddle, he came close to me again.  “Harry,” he whispered, “she should not be in this business, and I would have not had it so could I have helped it, and, I pray you, have a care to her safety.”  This he spoke so low that Mary could not hear, and, moreover, she, with one of those sudden turns of hers that made her have as many faces of delight as a diamond in the sun, had thrown an arm around the neck of Sir Humphrey’s mare, and was talking to her in such dulcet tones as her lovers would have died for the sake of hearing in their ears.

“Have no fears for her safety,” I whispered back.  “So far as the goods go, there is no more danger.”

“What did you, Harry?”

“Sir Humphrey,” I whispered back, while Mary’s sweet voice in the mare’s delicate ear sounded like a song, “sometimes an unguessed riddle hath less weight than a guessed one, and some fish of knowledge had best be left in the stream.  I tell thee she is safe.”  So saying, I looked him full in his honest, boyish face, which was good to see, though sometime I wished, for the maid’s sake, that it had more shrewdness of wit in it.  Then he gave me a great grasp of the hand, and whispered something hoarsely.  “Thou art a good fellow, Harry, in spite of, in spite of—­” then he bent low over Mary’s hand for the second time, and sprang to his saddle, and was off toward Jamestown on his white mare, flashing along the moonlit road like a whiter moonbeam.

Then Mary came close to me, and did what she had never before done since she was a child.  She laid her little hand on my arm of her own accord.  “Master Wingfield,” said she, softly, “what about the goods?”

“The goods for which you sent to England are yours and in the great house,” said I, and I heard my voice tremble.

She drew her hand away and stood looking at me, and her sweet forehead under her golden curls was all knitted with perplexity.

“You know, you know I—­lied,” she whispered like a guilty child.

“You cannot lie,” I answered, “and the goods are yours.”