“And if you hear any man say that, shoot him dead, Sir Humphrey Hyde,” I said, for, through liking not that story about Bacon, I was fiercer in defence of it.

“Faith, and I will, Harry,” cried Sir Humphrey, “and Bacon was a greater man than the king, if I were to swing for it; but, Harry, you cannot by yourself move these.  What will you do?”

But I begged him to say no more, and started toward the window, the door being fast locked as Mistress Mary had left it, when suddenly the boy stopped me and caught me by the hand, and begged me to tell him if I thought there might be any hope for him with Mary Cavendish, being moved to do so by her sending him away so peremptorily the night before, which had put him in sore doubt.  “Tell me, Harry,” he pleaded, and the great lad seemed like a child, with his honest outlook of blue eyes, “tell me what you think, I pray thee, Harry; look at me, and tell me, if you were a maid, what would you think of me?”

Loving Mary Cavendish as I did, and striving to look at him with her eyes, a sort of tenderness crept into my heart for this simple lover, who was as brave as he was simple, and I clapped a hand on his fair curls, for though he was so tall I was taller, and laughed and said, “If I were a maid, though ’tis a fancy to rack the brain, but, if I were a maid, I would love thee well, lad.”

“My mother thinketh none like me, and so tells me every day, and says that I am like my father, who was the handsomest man in England; but then mothers be all so, and I know not how much of it to trust, and my sister Cicely loves Mary so well herself that she is jealous, and often tells me—­” then the lad stopped and stared at me, and I at him, perplexed, not dreaming what was in his mind.

“Tells you what, Sir Humphrey?” said I.

“That, that—­oh, confound it, Harry, there is no harm in saying it, for you as well as I know the folly of it, and that ’tis but the jealous fancy of a girl.  Faith, but I think my sister Cicely is as much in love with Mary Cavendish as I.  ’Tis but—­my sister Cicely, when she will tease me, tells me ’tis not I but you that Mary Cavendish hath set her heart upon, Harry.”

I felt myself growing pale at that, and I could not speak because of a curious stiffness of my lips, and I heard my heart beat like a clock in the deserted house.  Sir Humphrey was looking at me with an anxiety which was sharpening into suspicion.  “Harry,” he said, “you do not think—­”

“’Tis sheer folly, lad,” I burst out then, “and let us have no more of it.  ’Tis but the idle prating of a lovesick girl, who should have a lover, ere she try to steal a nest in the heart of one of her own sex.  ’Tis folly, Sir Humphrey Hyde.”