“But she oweth duty to the true mother,” said Susan, with her hand on the girl’s neck.

“We wot well of that,” answered her husband, “and I trow the first is to be secret.”

“Yea, sir,” said Cis, recovering herself, “none save the very few who tended her, the Queen at Lochleven, know who I verily am.  Such as were aware of the babe being put on board ship at Dunbar, thought me the daughter of a Scottish archer, a Hepburn, and she, the Queen my mother, would, have me pass as such to those who needs must know I am not myself.”

“Trust her for making a double web when a single one would do,” muttered Richard, but so that the girl could not hear.

“There is no need for any to know at present,” said Susan hastily, moved perhaps by the same dislike to deception; “but ah, there’s that fortune-telling woman.”

Cis, proud of her secret information, here explained that Tibbott was indeed Cuthbert Langston, but not the person whose password was “beads and bracelets,” and that both alike could know no more than the story of the Scottish archer and his young wife, but they were here interrupted by the appearance of Diccon, who had been sent by my Lord himself to hasten them at the instance of the Queen.  Master Richard sent the boy on with his mother, saying he would wait and bring Cis, as she had still to compose her hair and coif, which had become somewhat disordered.

“My maiden,” he said, gravely, “I have somewhat to say unto thee.  Thou art in a stranger case than any woman of thy years between the four seas; nay, it may be in Christendom.  It is woeful hard for thee not to be a traitor through mere lapse of tongue to thine own mother, or else to thy Queen.  So I tell thee this once for all.  See as little, hear as little, and, above all, say as little as thou canst.”

“Not to mother?” asked Cis.

“No, not to her, above all not to me, and, my girl, pray God daily to keep thee true and loyal, and guard thee and the rest of us from snares.  Now have with thee.  We may tarry no longer!”

All went as usual for the rest of the day, so that the last night was like a dream, until it became plain that Cicely was again to share the royal apartment.

“Ah, I have thirsted for this hour!” said Mary, holding out her arms and drawing her daughter to her bosom.  “Thou art a canny lassie, mine ain wee thing.  None could have guessed from thy bearing that there was aught betwixt us.”

“In sooth, madam,” said the girl, “it seems that I am two maidens in one—­Cis Talbot by day, and Bride of Scotland by night.”

“That is well!  Be all Cis Talbot by day.  When there is need to dissemble, believe in thine own feigning.  ’Tis for want of that art that these clumsy Southrons make themselves but a laughing-stock whenever they have a secret.”

Cis did not understand the maxim, and submitted in silence to some caresses before she said, “My father will give your Grace the tokens when we return.”