Now I should sooner have looked for the skies to fall than for Ann, my heart’s closest friend, to keep the secret of what had befallen that very morning; and yet she kept silence.

We were commonly wont to chirp like a pair of crickets while we braided our hair and got into our beds; but this night there was not a sound in the chamber.  Commonly we laid us down with a simple “Good night, Margery,” “Sleep well, Ann,” after we had said our prayers before the image of the Blessed Virgin; but this night my friend held me close in her arms, and as I was about to get into bed she ran to me again and kissed me with much warmth.  Whether I was so loving to her I cannot, at this day, tell; but I remember well that I remained dumb, and my heart seemed to ache with sorrow and pain.  I thought myself defrauded, and my true love scorned.  Was it possible?  Did my Ann trust me no longer, or had she never trusted me?

Nay more.  Was she at all such as I had believed, if she could carry on an underhand and forbidden love-making with Herdegen behind my back; and this, Merciful Virgin, peradventure, for years past!

The taper had burnt out.  We lay side by side striving to sleep, while distress of mind and a wounded heart brought the tears into my eyes.

Then I heard a strange noise from her bed, and was aware that Ann likewise was weeping, more bitterly and deeply every minute.  This pierced the very depths of my soul.  Yet I tried to harden my heart till I heard her voice saying:  “Margery!”

That was an end of our silence, and I answered:  “Ann.”

Then she sobbed out:  “As we came home from the hunt he made me promise never to reveal it, but it is bursting my heart.  Oh!  Margery, Margery, I ought to hide and bury it in my soul; so he bid me, and nevertheless......”

I sat up on the pillow as if new life had come to me, and cried:  “Oh Ann, you can tell me nothing that I know not already, for I saw him dismount and how he embraced you.”

And then, before I was aware of her, she leaped up and was kneeling on her knees by the head of my bed, and her lips were kissing mine, and her cheeks were against my face and her tears running down my cheeks and neck and bosom while she confessed all.  In our peaceful little chamber there was a wild outpouring of vows of love and words of fear, of plans for the future, and long tales of how it all had come to pass.

I had with mine own eyes seen it in the bud and, unwittingly indeed, had fostered its growth.  How then could I be dismayed when now I beheld the flower?

Their meeting this morning had been as the striking of flint and steel, and if sparks had come of it how could they help it?  And I took Ann’s word when she said that she would have flown into the arms of her beloved, if father and mother and a hundred more had been standing round to warn her.

All she said that night was full of perfect and joyful assurance, and it took hold of my young soul; and albeit I could not blind myself, but saw that great and sore hindrances stood in the way of my brother’s choice, I vowed to myself that I would smooth their path so far as in me lay.