“I need no fortune of your bringing,” she said proudly, and trying to get nearer the rest of the party, heartily wishing she was on, not off, her little rough pony.

“My young lady is proud,” said her tormentor, fixing on her the little pale eyes she so much disliked.  “She is not one of the maidens who would thank one who can make or mar her life, and cast spells that can help her to a princely husband or leave her to a prison.”

“Let go,” said Cicely, as she saw a retaining hand laid on her pony’s bridle; “I will not be beset thus.”

“And this is your gratitude to her who helped you to lie in a queen’s bosom; ay, and who could aid you to rise higher or fall lower?”

“I owe nothing to you,” said Cicely, too angry to think of prudence.  “Let me go!”

There was a laugh, and not a woman’s laugh.  “You owe nothing, quoth my mistress?  Not to one who saw you, a drenched babe, brought in from the wreck, and who gave the sign which has raised you to your present honours?  Beware!”

By this time, however, the conversation had attracted notice, and several riders were coming towards them.

There was an immediate change of voice from the threatening tone to the beggar’s whine; but the words were—­“I must have my reward ere I speak out.”

“What is this?  A masterful beggar wife besetting Mistress Talbot,” said Mr. Somer, who came first.

“I had naught to give her,” said Cicely.

“She should have the lash for thus frightening you,” said Somer.  “Yonder lady is too good to such vagabonds, and they come about us in swarms.  Stand back, woman, or it may be the worse for you.  Let me help you to your horse, Mistress Cicely.”

Instead of obeying, the seeming woman, to gain time perhaps, began a story of woe; and Mr. Somer, being anxious to remount the young lady, did not immediately stop it, so that before Cis was in her saddle the Queen had ridden up, with Sir Ralf Sadler a little behind her.  There were thus a few seconds free, in which the stranger sprang to the Queen’s bridle and said a few hasty words almost inaudibly, and as Cis thought, in French; but they were answered aloud in English—­“My good woman, I know all that you can tell me, and more, of this young lady’s fortune.  Here are such alms as are mine to give; but hold your peace, and quit us now.”

Sir Ralf Sadler and his son-in-law both looked suspicious at this interview, and bade one of the grooms ride after the woman and see what became of her, but the fellow soon lost right of her in the broken ground by the river-side.