“With Gorion,” returned he.  “That was what made the lad suspect something, knowing that the chirurgeon can barely speak three sentences in any tongue but his own, and those are in their barbarous Scotch.  I took the boy with me and inquired here, there, and everywhere this afternoon, but could find no one who had ever seen or heard of any one like her.”

“Tell me, Cis,” exclaimed Susan, with a sudden conviction, “was she like in any fashion to Tibbott the huckster-woman who brought young Babington into trouble three years agone?”

“Women’s heads all run on one notion,” said Richard.  “Can there be no secret agents save poor Cuthbert, whom I believe to be beyond seas?”

“Nay, but hear what saith the child?” asked Susan.

“This woman was not nearly so old as Tibbott,” said Cis, “nor did she walk with a staff, nor had she those grizzled black brows that were wont to frighten me.”

“But was she tall?” asked Susan.

“Oh yes, mother.  She was very tall—­she came after Diccon and me with long strides—­yet it could never have been Tibbott!”

Susan had reasons for thinking otherwise, but she could not pursue the subject at that time, as she had to go down to supper with her husband, and privacy was impossible.  Even at night, nobody enjoyed extensive quarters, and but for Cicely’s accident she would have slept with Dyot, the tirewoman, who had arrived with the baggage, which included a pallet bed for them.  However, the young lady had been carried to a chamber intended for one of Queen Mary’s suite; and there it was decreed that she should remain for the night, the mother sleeping with her, while the father and son betook themselves to the room previously allotted to the family.  Only on the excuse of going to take out her husband’s gear from the mails was Susan able to secure a few words with him, and then by ordering out Diccon, Dyot, and the serving-man.  Then she could succeed in saying, “Mine husband, all will soon out—­Mistress Kennedy and Master Gorion have seen the brands on the child’s shoulders.  It is my belief that she of the ‘beads and bracelets’ bade the chirurgeon look for them.  Else, why should he have thrust himself in for a hurt that women-folk had far better have tended?  Now, that kinsman of yours knew that poor Cis was none of ours, and gave her a hint of it long ago—­that is, if Tibbott were he, and not something worse.”

Richard shook his head.  “Give a woman a hint of a seminary priest in disguise, and she would take a new-born baby for one.  I tell thee I heard that Cuthbert was safe in Paris.  But, be that as it may, I trust thou hast been discreet.”

“So I strove to be,” said Susan.  “Mrs. Kennedy questioned me, and I told her.”

“What?” sharply demanded her husband.

“Nought but truth,” she answered, “save that I showed no knowledge who the maid really is, nor let her guess that you had read the scroll.”