So out they went together, but to Humfrey’s surprise, Cicely walked on hardly speaking to him, so that he fancied at first that she must have had a lecture on her demeanour to him.  She took him along the broad terrace beside the bowling-green, through some yew-tree walks to a stone wall, and a gate which proved to be locked.  She looked much disappointed, but scanning the wall with her eye, said, “We have scaled walls together before now, and higher than this.  Humfrey, I cannot tell you why, but I must go over here.”

The wall was overgrown with stout branches of ivy, and though the Sunday farthingale was not very appropriate for climbing, Cicely’s active feet and Humfrey’s strong arm carried her safely to where she could jump down on the other side, into a sort of wilderness where thorn and apple trees grew among green mounds, heaps of stones and broken walls, the ruins of some old outbuilding of the former castle.  There was only a certain trembling eagerness about her, none of the mirthful exultation that the recurrence of such an escapade with her old companion would naturally have excited, and all she said was, “Stand here, Humfrey; an you love me, follow me not.  I will return anon.”

With stealthy stop she disappeared behind a mound covered by a thicket of brambles, but Humfrey was much too anxious for her safety not to move quietly onwards.  He saw her kneeling by one of those black yawning holes, often to be found in ruins, intent upon fastening a small packet to a stone; he understood all in a moment, and drew back far enough to secure that no one molested her.  There was something in this reticence of hers that touched him greatly; it showed so entirely that she had learnt the lesson of loyalty which his father’s influence had impressed, and likewise one of self-dependence.  What was right for her to do for her mother and Queen might not be right for him, as an Englishman, to aid and abet; and small as the deed seemed in itself, her thus silently taking it on herself rather than perplex him with it, added a certain esteem and respect to the affection he had always had for her.

She came back to him with bounding steps, as if with a lightened heart, and as he asked her what this strange place was, she explained that here were said to be the ruins of the former castle, and that beyond lay the ground where sometimes the party shot at the butts.  A little dog of Mary Seaton’s had been lost the last time of their archery, and it was feared that he had fallen down the old well to which Cis now conducted Humfrey.  There was a sound—­long, hollow, reverberating, when Humfrey threw a stone down, and when Cecily asked him, in an awestruck voice, whether he thought anything thrown there would ever be heard of more, he could well say that he believed not.