“For the which Heaven be praised!” said Humfrey.  “Yet having, as you say, read all these letters by the way, I see not wherefore ye are come down to seek for more.”

Will here imitated the Lord Treasurer’s nod as well as in him lay, not perhaps himself knowing the darker recesses of this same plot.  He did know so much as that every stage in it had been revealed to Walsingham and Burghley as it proceeded.  He did not know that the entire scheme had been hatched, not by a blind and fanatical partisan of Mary’s, doing evil that what he supposed to be good, might come, but by Gifford and Morgan, Walsingham’s agents, for the express purpose of causing Mary totally to ruin herself, and to compel Elizabeth to put her to death, and that the unhappy Babington and his friends were thus recklessly sacrificed.  The assassin had even been permitted to appear in Elizabeth’s presence in order to terrify her into the conviction that her life could only be secured by Mary’s death.  They, too, did evil that good might come, thinking Mary’s death alone could ensure them from Pope and Spaniard; but surely they descended into a lower depth of iniquity than did their victims.

Will himself was not certain what was wanted among the Queen’s papers, unless it might be the actual letters, from Babington, copies of which had been given by Phillips to the Council, so he only looked sagacious; and Humfrey thought of the Castle Well, and felt the satisfaction there is in seeing a hunted creature escape.  He asked, however, about Cuthbert Langston, saying, “He is—­worse luck, as you may have heard—­akin to my father, who always pitied him as misguided, but thought him as sincere in his folly as ever was this unlucky Babington.”

“So he seems to have been till of late.  He hovered about in sundry disguises, as you know, much to the torment of us all; but finally he seems to have taken some umbrage at the lady, thinking she flouted his services, or did not pay him high enough for them, and Gifford bought him over easily enough; but he goes with us by the name of Maude, and the best of it is that the poor fools thought he was hoodwinking us all the time.  They never dreamt that we saw through them like glass.  Babington was himself with Mr. Secretary only last week, offering to go to France on business for him—­the traitor!  Hark! there are more sounds of horse hoofs.  Who comes now, I marvel!”

This was soon answered by a serving-man, who hurried out to tell Humfrey that his father was arrived, and in a few moments the young man was blessed and embraced by the good Richard, while Diccon stood by, considerably repaired in flesh and colour by his brief stay under his mother’s care.

Mr. Richard Talbot was heartily welcomed by Sir Amias Paulett, who regretted that his daughter was out of reach, but did not make any offer of facilitating their meeting.