’Thou hadst the will and didst it not!  Is there yet another in my house who had the will and did it?’ cried the marquis, who, although more than annoyed that she should have so committed herself, yet was willing to give such scope to a lover, that if she had but confessed she had liberated him, he would have pardoned her heartily.  He did not yet know how incapable Dorothy was of a lie.

‘But, my lord, I had not the will to set him free,’ she said.

‘Wherefore then didst go to him?’

‘My lord, he was sorely wounded, and I had seen him fall fainting,’ said Dorothy, repressing her tears with much ado.

‘And thou didst go to comfort him?’

Dorothy was silent.

‘How camest thou locked into his room?  Tell me that, mistress.’

’Your lordship knows as much of that as I do.  Indeed, I have been sorely punished for a little fault.’

‘Thou dost confess the fault then?’

’If it was a fault to visit him who was sick and in prison, my lord.’

The marquis was silent for a whole minute.

’And thou canst not tell how he gat him forth of the walls?  Must I believe him to be forth of them, my lord?’ he said, turning to his son.

’I cannot imagine him within them, my lord, after such search as we have made.’

‘Still,’ returned the marquis, the acuteness of whose wits had not been swallowed up by that of the gout, ’so long as thou canst not tell how he gat forth, I may doubt whether he be forth.  If the manner of his exit be acknowledged hidden, wherefore not the place of his refuge?  Mistress Dorothy,’ he continued, altogether averse to the supposition of treachery amongst his people, ’thou art bound by all obligations of loyalty and shelter and truth, to tell what thou knowest.  An’ thou do not, thou art a traitor to the house, yea to thy king, for when the worst comes, and this his castle is besieged, much harm may be wrought by that secret passage, yea, it may be taken thereby.’

‘You say true, my lord:  I should indeed be so bound, an’ I knew what my lord would have me disclose.’

‘One may be bound and remain bound,’ said the marquis, spying prevarication.  ’Now the thing is over, and the youth safe, all I ask of thee, and surely it is not much, is but to bar the door against his return—­except indeed thou didst from the first contrive so to meet thy roundhead lover in my loyal house.  Then indeed it were too much to require of thee!  Ah ha! mistress Dorothy, the little blind god is a rascally deceiver.  He is but blind nor’ nor’ west.  He playeth hoodman, and peepeth over his bandage.’

‘My lord, you wrong me much,’ said Dorothy, and burst into tears, while once more the red lava of the human centre rushed over her neck and brow.  ’I did think that I had done enough both for my lord of Worcester and against Richard Heywood, and I did hope that he had escaped:  there lies the worst I can lay to my charge even in thought, my lord, and I trust it is no more than may be found pardonable.’