‘I am glad to hear it, my lord,’ returned Dorothy, with a sudden influx of courage, coming, as the wind blows, she knew not whence.

‘Ha!’ said the marquis, quickly; ’then is it news to thee, mistress Dorothy?’

His lip, as it seemed to Dorothy, curled into a mocking smile; but the gout might have been in it.

’Indeed it is news, my lord.  I hoped it might be so, I confess, but I knew not that so it was.’

’What, mistress Dorothy! knewest thou not that the young thief was gone?’

’I knew that Richard Heywood was gone from his chamber—­whether from the castle I knew not.  He was no thief, my lord.  Your lordship’s page and fool were the thieves.’

’Cousin, I hardly know myself in the change I find in thee!  Truly, a marvellous change!  In the dark night thou takest a roundhead prisoner; in the gray of the morning thou settest him free again!  Hath one visit to his chamber so wrought upon thee?  To an old man it seemeth less than maidenly.’

Again a burning blush overspread poor Dorothy’s countenance.  But she governed herself, and spoke bravely, although she could not keep her voice from trembling.

‘My lord,’ she said, ’Richard Heywood was my playmate.  We were as brother and sister, for our fathers’lands bordered each other.’

‘Thou didst say nothing of these things last night?’

’My lord!  Before the whole hall?  Besides, what mattered it?  All was over long ago, and I had done my part against him.’

‘Fell you out together then?’

’What need is there for your lordship to ask?  Thou seest him of the one part, and me of the other.’

‘And from loving thou didst fall to hating?’

‘God forbid, my lord!  I but do my part against him.’

’For the which thou hadst a noble opportunity unsought, raising the hue and cry upon him within his enemy’s walls!’

‘I would to God, my lord, it had not fallen to me.’

’Thinking better of it, therefore, and repenting of thy harshness, thou didst seek his chamber in the night to tell him so?  I would fain know how a maiden reasoneth with herself when she doth such things.’

’Not so, my lord.  I will tell you all.  I could not sleep for thinking of my wounded playmate.  And as to what he had done, after it became clear that he sought but his own, and meant no hair’s-breadth of harm to your lordship, I confess the matter looked not the same.’

’Therefore you would make him amends and undo what you had done?  You had caught the bird, and had therefore a right to free the bird when you would?  All well, mistress Dorothy, had he been indeed a bird!  But being a man, and in thy friend’s house, I doubt thy logic.  The thing had passed from thy hands into mine, young mistress,’ said the marquis, into the ball of whose foot the gout that moment ran its unicorn-horn.

’I did not set him free, my lord.  When I entered the prison-chamber, he was already gone.’