’How knewest thou the prisoner ere it was yet daybreak, and that in the darkest corner of all the court?’

’I knew him by the way my bones shook at the white sleeves of his shirt, my lord,’ said Tom, who was too far gone in fear to make the joke of pretending courage.

‘Hardly evidence, Tom.  But go on.’

‘And with him I saw mistress Dorothy—­’

‘Hold there, Tom!’ cried lord Herbert.  ’Wherefore didst not impart this last night to my lady?’

’Because my lady loveth mistress Dorothy, and I dreaded she would therefore refuse to believe me.’

‘What a heap of cunning goes to the making of a downright fool!’ said lord Herbert to himself, but so as Tom could not fail to hear him.  ‘And what saw’st thou pass between them?’ he asked.

‘Only a whispering with their heads together,’ answered Tom.

‘And what heard’st thou?’

‘Nothing, my lord.’

‘And what followed?’

’The roundhead left her, and went through the archway.  She stood a moment and then followed him.  But I, fearful of her coming up the stair and finding me, gat me quickly to my own place.’

’Oh, Tom, Tom!  I am ashamed of thee.  What!  Afraid of a woman?  Verily, thy heart is of wax.’

‘That can hardly be, my lord, for I find it still on the wane.’

‘An’ thy wit were no better than thy courage, thou hadst never had enough to play the fool with.’

‘No, my lord; I should have had to turn philosopher.’

’A fair hit, Tom!  But tell me, why wast thou afeard of mistress Dorothy?’

’It might have come to a quarrel in some sort, my lord; and there is one thing I have remarked in my wanderings through this valley of Baca’ said Tom, speaking through his nose, and lengthening his face beyond even its own nature, ’namely, that he who quarrels with a woman goes ever to the wall.’

’One thing perplexes me, Tom:  if thou sawest mistress Dorothy in the court with the roundhead, how came she thereafter, thinkest thou, locked up in his chamber?’

‘It behoves that she went into it again, my lord.’

‘How knowest thou she had been there before?’

‘Nay, I know not, my lord.  I know nothing of the matter.’

’Why say’st it then?  Take heed to thy words, Tom.  Who then, thinkest thou, did lock the door upon her?’

’I know not, my lord, and dare hardly say what I think.  But let your lordship’s wisdom determine whether it might not be one of those demons whereof the house hath been full ever since that night when I saw them rise from the water of the moat—­that even now surrounds us, my lord!—­and rush into the fountain court.’

’Meddle thou not, even in thy thoughts, with things that are beyond thee,’ said lord Herbert.  ’By what signs knewest thou mistress Dorothy in the dark as she stood talking to the roundhead?’

‘There was light enough to know woman from man, my lord.’