“Whose hand is this, Will?” asked Philip Lisle at last, just as we came in sight of the lights at Dale’s Field. “I did not know that my poor girl had an enemy—nor that I had either, for that matter.”
“I cannot understand it,” I answered, and said no more, knowing not what to say. And yet there was a suspicion in my mind that I might have spoken of to him if I had not felt some reluctance in coming to a decision about it. I tried to put it from me, hating even to think evil without due cause, but strive as I would the suspicion grew stronger, and at last I found myself thinking of it seriously.
Captain Trevor—was it his hand that had brought us all this wrong? Do what I would I could not help but suspect him. He had been so frank and courteous, and had seemed so gallant and true a cavalier, that it went through my heart to think wrong of him. And yet I knew the ways of some of those fine gentlemen of the Court, how they think that all is fair in love and war, and will stoop to such deceit to win a fair maiden as they would not condescend to for aught else. I knew, too, because of his own confession, that Captain Trevor had conceived a deep passion for Rose, and it seemed to me very possible that absence from her had so strengthened his feelings as to render him forgetful of honour or of aught else save a desire to win her for himself. But it was hard to believe, for I could not think that one who had experienced so much kindness at the hands of me and mine would repay us by such base ingratitude and black treachery. Where else, however, to look for an explanation of this strange matter I knew not. Of one thing only I was certain, namely, that whoever had thus compassed evil against me and my dear love should pay for it with his blood.
The lights were being extinguished as we rode into the fold at Dale’s Field, for it was late, and we were always early to bed at our house. The window of the chamber occupied by Lucy and Rose was dark and cheerless, but there was a glow of light through the window of the kitchen, and we had barely knocked at the door before my mother opened it and gave us admittance.
“My dear,” said she, holding me very close in her arms, for I had not seen her for some weeks, “my dear, we had not thought to see you at this time of night! It was only this afternoon that I sent you a letter by the hand of Master Belwether.”
“Alas, mother!” I answered, “it is that very letter that hath brought us here.”
It was nearly dark in the doorway, and she could not distinguish my companion’s face through the gloom, but when I spoke she turned towards him anxiously.
“Who is it that is come with you, Will?” she said.
“It is I, Mistress Dale,” answered Philip.
“Master Lisle! Alas, I fear there is something wrong. Let us have a light, Will. I feared something when I heard your step at the door.”
I struck a light from the flint that always hung by the hearth, while Philip tied up our horses at the door, and threw our rugs across their steaming backs. The light from the lamp fell on our three anxious faces as we gathered round the dying embers.
“What is it, Will?” asked my mother.
“It is this, dear mother. Here is Master Lisle alive and well, and hath had no hurt whatever of late, so that the men who have carried off Rose to see him have deceived both her and you.”
She looked from me to him and from him to me, as if she could hardly understand what I had told her.
“Alas, Master Lisle,” she said, “I have been very, very foolish—but, indeed, what were we to think, for the men were so very grave and earnest? And then, again, they brought a letter from yourself, so that we could not choose but believe them.”
“The letter, mother; let us see the letter.”
“Why, by good chance, Rose left it behind her, though she had at first intended to carry it with her,” said my mother, “and Lucy put it away after she had gone. But indeed, Master Lisle, ’tis so like your own handwriting that you will not wonder we were deceived by it.”
Nor did we when we had seen the letter, for it was very cleverly made to imitate Philip’s writing, so that we at once knew that whoever had hatched this foul plot was familiar with the man whose daughter it sought to injure. It was but a short letter, saying that Philip Lisle lay sick unto death at a day’s journey, and desired his daughter to go to him under care of the two trusty messengers who carried it.
“And these,” said my mother, “were two decent-looking serving-men, one of whom told us that he had known Master Lisle a many years, and was with him at the time of his hurt, which had been gotten during a fight with the rebels on the borders of Derbyshire where he now lay dying. And they were both so full of pity
