But she listened no more to the songs of the nightingales, and they left the orchard together in silence.

‘Come, Rowland, we must not be found here alone,’ said Amanda, who saw them go.  ’But tell me one thing first:  is mistress Dorothy Vaughan indeed your cousin?’

‘She is indeed.  Her mother and mine were cousins german—­sisters’ children.’

’I thought it could not be a near cousinship.  You are not alike at all.  Hear me, Rowland, but let it die in your ear—­I love not mistress Dorothy.’

’And the reason, lovely hater?  “Is not the maiden fair to see?” as the old song says.  I do not mean that she is fair as some are fair, but she will pass; she offends not.’

’She is fair enough—­not beautiful, not even pleasing; but, to be just, the demure look she puts on may bear the fault of that.  Rowland, I would not speak evil of any one, but your cousin is a hypocrite.  She is false at heart, and she hates me.  Trust me, she but bides her time to let me know it—­and you too, my Rowland.’

‘I am sure you mistake her, Amanda,’ said Scudamore.  ’Her looks are but modest, and her words but shy, for she came hither from a lonely house.  I believe she is honest and good.’

’Seest thou not then how that she makes friends with none but her betters?  Already hath she wound herself around my lady’s heart, forsooth! and now she pays her court to the puffing chaplain!  Hast thou never observed, my Rowland, how oft she crosses the bridge to the yellow tower?  What seeks she there?  Old Kaltoff, the Dutchman, it can hardly be.  I know she thinks to curry with my lord by pretending to love locks and screws and pistols and such like.  “But why should she haunt the place when my lord is not there?” you will ask.  Her pretence will hold the better for it, no doubt, and Caspar will report concerning her.  And if she pleases my lord well, who knows but he may give her a pair of watches to hang at her ears, or a box that Paracelsus himself could not open without the secret as well as the key?  I have heard of both such.  They say my lord hath twenty cartloads of quite as wonderful things in that vault he calls his workshop.  Hast thou never marked the huge cabinet of black inlaid with silver, that stands by the wall—­fitter indeed for my lady’s chamber than such a foul place?’

‘I have seen it,’ answered Scudamore.

‘I warrant me it hath store of gewgaws fit for a duchess.’

‘Like enough,’ assented Rowland.

’If mistress Dorothy were to find the way through my lord’s favour into that cabinet—­truly it were nothing to thee or me, Rowland.’

‘Assuredly not.  It would be my lord’s own business.’

’Once upon a time I was sent to carry my young lady Raven thither—­to see my lord earn his bread, as said my lady:  and what should my lord but give her no less than a ball of silver which, thrown into a vessel of water at any moment would plainly tell by how much it rose above the top, the very hour and minute of the day or night, as well and truly as the castle-clock itself.  Tell me not, Rowland, that the damsel hath no design in it.  Her looks betoken a better wisdom.  Doth she not, I ask your honesty, far more resemble a nose-pinched puritan than a loyal maiden?’