“Treason from one sovereign to another, that is new law!” said Babington.

“So to speak,” said Richard; “but if she claim to be heiress to the crown, she must also be a subject.  Heaven forefend that she should come to the throne!”

To which all except Cis and Babington uttered a hearty amen, while a picture arose before the girl of herself standing beside her royal mother robed in velvet and ermine on the throne, and of the faces of Lady Shrewsbury and her daughter as they recognised her, and were pardoned.

Cavendish presently took his leave, and carried the unwilling Babington off with him, rightly divining that the family would wish to make their arrangements alone.  To Richard’s relief, Babington had brought him no private message, and to Cicely’s disappointment, there was no addition in sympathetic ink to her letter, though she scorched the paper brown in trying to bring one out.  The Scottish Queen was much too wary to waste and risk her secret expedients without necessity.

To Richard and Susan this was the real resignation of their foster-child into the hands of her own parent.  It was true that she would still bear their name, and pass for their daughter, but that would be only so long as it might suit her mother’s convenience; and instead of seeing her every day, and enjoying her full confidence (so far as they knew), she would be out of reach, and given up to influences, both moral and religious, which they deeply distrusted; also to a fate looming in the future with all the dark uncertainty that brooded over all connected with Tudor or Stewart royalty.

How much good Susan wept and prayed that night, only her pillow knew, not even her husband; and there was no particular comfort when my Lady Countess descended on her in the first interval of fine weather, full of wrath at not having been consulted, and discharging it in all sorts of predictions as to Cis’s future.  No honest and loyal husband would have her, after being turned loose in such company; she would be corrupted in morals and manners, and a disgrace to the Talbots; she would be perverted in faith, become a Papist, and die in a nunnery beyond sea; or she would be led into plots and have her head cut off; or pressed to death by the peine forte et dure.

Susan had nothing to say to all this, but that her husband thought it right, and then had a little vigorous advice on her own score against tamely submitting to any man, a weakness which certainly could not be laid to the charge of the termagant of Hardwicke.

Cicely herself was glad to go.  She loved her mother with a romantic enthusiastic affection, missed her engaging caresses, and felt her Bridgefield home eminently dull, flat, and even severe, especially since she had lost the excitement of Humfrey’s presence, and likewise her companion Diccon.  So she made her preparations with a joyful alacrity, which secretly pained her good foster-parents, and made Susan almost ready to reproach her with ingratitude.