Sir Amyas flew to his uncle’s door, but found him gone out, and, in too great haste to inquire further, came down again to find Betty in cloak and hood.  He gave her his arm, and, Eugene trotting after them, they hurried to the nearest stairs, remembering in dire confirmation what Betty had heard from the school-girl.  Both had heard reports that young women were sometimes thus deported to become wives to the planters in the southern colonies or the West Indies, but that such a destiny should be intended for their own Aurelia, and by Lady Belamour, was scarcely credible.  Doubts rushed over Betty, but she remembered what the school-girl had said of the captive being sent beyond seas; and at any rate, she must risk the expedition being futile when such issues hung upon it.  And if they failed to meet her father, she felt that her presence might prevail when the undefined rights of so mere a lad as her companion might be disregarded.

His soldier servant had secured a boat, and they rapidly descended to the river; Sir Amyas silent between suspense, dismay and shame for his mother, and Betty trying to keep Eugene quiet by hurried answers to his eager questions about all he saw.  They had to get out at London Bridge, and take a fresh boat on the other side, a much larger one, with two oarsmen, and a grizzled old coxswain, with a pleasant honest countenance, who presently relieved Betty of all necessity of attending to, or answering, Eugene’s chatter.

“Do you know where this garden is?” said she, leaning across to Sir Amyas, who had engaged the boat to go to Greenwich.

He started as if it were a new and sudden thought, and turning to the steersman demanded whether he knew Mrs. Darke’s garden.

The old man gave a kind of grunt, and eyed the trio interrogatively, the young officer with his fresh, innocent, boyish face and brilliant undisguised uniform, the handsome child, the lady neither young, gay, nor beautiful, but unmistakeably a decorous gentlewoman.

“Do you know Mrs. Darke’s?” repeated Sir Amyas.

“Aye, do I?  Mayhap I know more about the place than you do.”

There was that about his face that moved Betty and the young man to look at one another, and the former said, “She has had to do with—­ evil doings?”

“You may say that, ma’am.”

“Then,” they cried in one breath, “you will help us!” And in a very few words Betty explained their fears for her young sister, and asked whether he thought the warning possible.

“I’ve heard tell of such things!” said the old man between his teeth, “and Mother Darkness is one to do ’em.  Help you to bring back the poor young lass?  That we will, if we have to break down the door with our fists.  And who is this young spark?  Her brother or her sweetheart?”

“Her husband!” said Sir Amyas.  “Her husband from whom she has been cruelly spirited away.  Aid me to bring her back, my good fellow, and nothing would be too much to reward you.”