“I question whether the Countess would let him go if he wished it.  She is altogether changed in mind, and come round to her first love for this Lady, declaring that it is all her Lord’s fault that the custody was taken from them, and that she could and would have hindered all this.”

“That may be so,” said Humfrey.  “If all be true that is whispered, there have been dealings which would not have been possible at Sheffield.”

“So it may be.  In any wise my Lady is bitterly grieved, and they send for thy mother every second day to pacify her.”

“Dear mother!” murmured Cis; “when shall I see her again?”

“I would that she had thee for a little space, my wench,” said Richard; “thou hast lost thy round ruddy cheeks.  Hast been sick?”

“Nay, sir, save as we all are—­sick at heart!  But all seems well now you are here.  Tell me of little Ned.  Is he as good scholar as ever?”

“Verily he is.  We intend by God’s blessing to bring him up for the ministry.  I hope in another year to take him to Cambridge.  Thy mother is knitting his hosen of gray and black already.”

Other questions and answers followed about Bridgefield tidings, which still evidently touched Cicely as closely as if she had been a born Talbot.  There was a kind of rest in dwelling on these before coming to the sadder, more pressing concern of her other life.  It was not till the slow striking of the Castle clock warned them that they had less than an hour to spend together that they came to closer matters, and Richard transferred to Cicely those last sad messages to her Queen, which he had undertaken for Babington and Tichborne.

“The Queen hath shed many tears for them,” she said, “and hath writ to the French and Spanish ambassadors to have masses said for them.  Poor Antony!  Did he send no word to me, dear father?”

The man being dead, Mr. Talbot saw no objection to telling her how he had said he had never loved any other, though he had been false to that love.

“Ah, poor Antony!” said Cis, with her grave simplicity.  “But it would not have been right for me to be a hindrance to the marriage of one who could never have me.”

“While he loved you it would,” said Humfrey hastily.  “Yea,” as she lifted up her eyes to him, “it would so, as my father will tell you, because he could not truly love that other woman.”

Richard smiled sadly, and could not but assent to his son’s honest truth and faith.

“Then,” said Cis, with the, same straightforwardness, sprung of their old fraternal intercourse, “you must quit all love for me save a brother’s, Humfrey; for my Queen mother made me give her my word on my duty never to wed you.”

“I know,” returned Humfrey calmly.  “I have known all that these two years; but what has that to do with my love?”

“Come, come, children,” said Richard, hardening himself though his eyes were moist; “I did not come here to hear you two discourse like the folks in a pastoral!  We may not waste time.  Tell me, child, if thou be not forbidden, hath she any purpose for thee?”