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thrilled with astonishment. Sir William opened his blue eyes wide, his mouth gaping in the depths of his snowy beard. Antonio shook his head again, smiling more intensely; it seemed, indeed, as if he checked a laugh with difficulty. Alice Tilney frowned, the picture of consternation. As to the two persons most concerned, they looked at each other across the glowing space that separated them. Margaret was trembling; the wonder of it all held her breathless, but the fear in her eyes had given place to a wild, incredulous joy. Could it be that this knight, this hero, was actually asking for her hand,-Meg Roden, so young, so foolish, so ignorant? How had it come about? There was some mystery in it. However, so it was, and now Lord Marlowe's eyes, eager and adoring, were repeating the wonderful request to hers that met them SO sweetly. Whether that strange whisper, coming no one knew whence, had been a fresh command or a bold guess at his intention, it had hit the mark; he now, at least, meant to ask and to have. After a moment's delay he repeated more loudly, though with a ght tremulousness, the word "Myif."

Then he made a step nearer Sir William, and bowed twice to him and to Margaret, who still stood with one hand on the old man's shoulder. It was plain that he expected his answer on the spot.

"You do us great honour, my Lord," the Knight began, stammering a little in his surprise. ""Tis sudden, though-and yet, Harry Marlowe, the son of my old brother-in-arms, is the man I should have chosen out of all England-so my Lady guessed, I suppose. But, pardon me, 'tis sudden, my Lord."

"Sir, I am on my way to join the Queen," Lord Marlowe said. "There

is no time for delays and circumventions; a soldier must snatch at his own life as he can, and you know it, no man better, Sir William. Let me hear from Mistress Margaret's own sweet lips that she does not hate me; then give me my wife to-morrow, and the next morning shall see me on my way. My mother shall fetch my wife home to Swanlea, either in person or by a trusty escort. You are satisfied, Sir William?”

He came nearer, bent on one knee close to the old Knight's chair, held up his hand imploringly to Margaret, who instantly laid hers in it, for with him, it seemed, to ask was to command. Yet his manner was gentleness itself, the manner of a man never brutal, but always victorious.

"Good Lord! Madder than the maddest!" Antonio muttered in the background; but the smile died from his red lips and he turned a little pale. For the madman seemed likely to have his crazy way.

Old Sir William made an impatient movement. "Hear you, my Lord? You are too sudden," he said. "Do you think my granddaughter can be married off like a beggar in a ditch? There shall be no such haste, I tell you. Why, five minutes ago, you could not believe that I wished to part with her at all. Your courtship has gained in pace amazingly. And you forget, Sir; you have not yet handed me my Lady Marlowe's letters."

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He looked with a queer smile at the packet in his hand, stepped across the floor and dropped it straight into the reddest heart of the fire.

"I see it. I thought as much," Antonio muttered. "Ay, my Lord,'too good for the Popinjay'!"

As the letters flamed, carrying their secret in smoke up the chimney, Harry Marlowe turned on the hearth, bold, graceful, laughing, to face the frowning brow and angry puzzled eyes of the old man in the chair.

But a great noise which had been growing for some minutes before, now stormed the shallow staircase and poured into the room. A crowd of Christmas mummers masked and in antic dresses, St. George, the Dragon, and the rest, with loud shouts and songs and clatter of halberds and tin swords, prancing round in their timehonoured, privileged revels, effectually interrupted my Lord Marlowe's lovemaking.

CHAPTER III.

MISTRESS MARGARET RODEN was walking home from church, which may sound like a tame statement, but is far from being so.

It was in the narrow street of Ruddiford, heaped with snow, and the time was between one and two in the morning. The sky was dark, no moon or stars visible, and a few large flakes of fresh snow had lately begun to fall, slowly, dreamily, as if they knew there was yet a long winter during which they might be multiplied a million times and work their will. But the street was lit up fitfully with the blaze of torches, the steadier flame of lanthorns, and all the population of small townspeople were abroad, with a mixture of fiercelooking men from the surrounding country. Most of them had been in the church, whose mighty sandstone

walls and tower soared into silence and black night, while the shadowy interior was lit up with many wax candles, more than one altar glowing like a shrine. The midnight mass of Christmas Eve was just over. Nearly all the congregation had tramped out before Mistress Margaret left her pew and followed them through the great porch and down the stone-paved way into the street, attended closely by her nurse and Alice Tilney, and followed by two armed servants in the yellow Roden livery. There was a good deal of noise in the street, for the Christmas mummers and revellers were still abroad and the ale-shops were open; but no one was likely to molest the girl for whom most of Ruddiford would have laid down its life. Along the winding street that led to one of the castle gates, where the low thatched roofs beetled over the way, Christmas greetings waited for her at every corner, and she might well have returned, safely and without interruption, to her grandfather.

But there was a spirit of unrest abroad, and Mistress Meg had her full share, both within and without, of his company. The first adventure arrived not far from the shadow of the church-porch, from which several young men, muffled in cloaks over their short coats of leather and iron, followed her and her party down the street. The foremost of them put out a hand suddenly from the darkness and clutched Alice Tilney by the shoulder. She started, but did not scream, and indeed laughed a little, though nervously, as she lingered behind with this strange companion. The old nurse looked round with an angry exclamation; angry exclamation; the two menservants, grinning, seemed to wait for orders, and the nurse, hurrying forward, spoke to her mistress.

"Meg, my child," she said, "that

godless dog Jasper Tilney, with his Fellowship, has stopped Alice from following you. Shall the men bring her on?"

Meg answered impatiently, and without turning her head: "Nay, Nurse, leave her alone. No, what am I saying! Let them wait upon her. You and I need no guard."

The old woman turned to the servants with a queer grimace. "Stop you behind, Giles and John. Walk after Mistress Tilney, when her worshipful brother has done with her."

Then she hobbled forward in a great hurry, for her mistress's young limbs seemed likely to outstrip her.

In truth, Margaret moved along in a state of such excitement that she hardly knew what she said or did. Even in church it had been impossible to keep her thoughts where she knew they ought to be, where, as a good Christian girl, well taught by Sir Thomas the Vicar, they generally dwelt without difficulty. The child was horrified, when she remembered to be so, at the knowledge that a personage had stepped in between her God and her. A man's face came between her and the Holy Cradle she had helped to decorate. This was so great a fact that it could not be altered by any will of hers, but it made her conscience uneasy. It must be confessed, however, that she had a greater anxiety still. How would all this end? In the nature of things it might have seemed certain that her grandfather would have accepted for her, joyful and honoured, Lord Marlowe's offer of his hand. But Margaret, though only half understanding the circumstances, saw for herself that the way was not smooth. Sir William was not quite ready to open his arms to this new grandson. He had been glad of the interruption by the mummers, and when they were gone, he had refused

to listen to a word more from Lord Marlowe, sending him away at once to rest and refresh himself after his journey. And when Meg had stolen round and looked in his face to see what he would say to her, he had turned his head away and waved her back with an impatient word. "Get you gone, child. No more to-night; you shall have my commands in the morning."

As Meg left the room, she was aware of words and smiles exchanged between Alice Tilney and Antonio. When they saw her look, they moved asunder, and she was too proud to speak to Alice on the subject. But she presently said to her old nurse, "What does it all mean?"

"Well, baby," the old woman answered caressingly, "this lord is a fine man, but they say he's crazy. That's the talk, my dear; and sure there's something about him mighty strange. He is not like the rest of us, and if you are wise, you will not listen to all he says, my girl."

"Not like the rest of you? No, that is true! And therefore crazy?" said Meg, and moved on smiling. Surely her grandfather ought to be above these foolish servants' fancies. They had never seen anything like him, therefore he must be mad. A clever argument, truly! Was he mad because he wished to marry her tomorrow? Well,-and Meg laid her cold hands against her hot cheeks, and determined for a moment to think of him no more. But she went on thinking of him, to the exclusion of every other thought, and now, as she paced the familiar old street on Christmas morning, the feeling that he must be somewhere very near kept her watching every turn, every corner, every shadow of gable or wall. had not seen him in the church, but felt sure he had been there, like all other good men in Christendom.

She

And thus it did not astonish her to look up suddenly and see him walking by her side.

The church bells were clanging and clashing, but the rest of the noise they were leaving behind, and the place was lonely, for most of the castle people had already gone on, across the bridge that generally stood lowered over the deep narrow ditch, and under the low archway where the gate was set open. The water was frozen, the snow lay heaped against the ramparts and along a dark lane that ran at the back of some houses on the near side of the ditch, skirting it as far as the principal gateway, which commanded the west side of the town and the long bridge.

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Now, good Mistress Nurse," said Lord Marlowe, "go home to your bed and leave my fair lady to me."

"Not I, my Lord," replied Dame Kate promptly with a chuckle. "Your Lordship had best go your own way and leave us to go ours.' "What, may I not wish you a Merry Christmas?" said Harry.

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The old woman could not see well in the dark,-it was dark here, except for the glimmer of the snowand truly she did not know what happened, or how her mistress was snatched from her side and borne away suddenly out of sight. Margaret herself, in the magnetism of Harry's presence, hardly realised that he had lifted her easily, tall girl as she was, from the snowy ground, and had carried her some yards down the dark lane by the ditch, till, stopping out of sight of the street and the castle gate, he set her down on the low wall or course of large stones that divided the lane from the water. To make a dry place for her feet, he brushed the snow away from this parapet, and then, holding her hand and dress, stood looking up into the face now lifted above his own in the dimness.

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'Forgive me, my angel! I had to speak," he said.

"Oh, my Lord, what are you doing?" Margaret murmured.

"It is of you I would ask," said Harry, "what are you doing? Why did you say that to me? God knows I'm happy to find myself at your feet, -I ask nothing better-but think what you have done! A man worn out, double your age, a soldier, the Queen's man, so bound to her service that I should have neither time nor strength nor heart for any other; and yet you call me to love you, sweet,— why?"

Margaret trembled from head to foot. "I do not understand you," she said, under her breath. "It,

it was no doing of mine. What have I said? You came, you brought the letters-"

She stopped short, for the world seemed whirling round her. Harry felt that she was trembling, and held her more firmly.

"You are not afraid of me," he said, "and if you are cold, sweetheart, I will not keep you long. What did you say, you ask? While my stepmother's message was on my tongue, you changed the very word I was speaking. You bid me put myself in the place of my brother. Can you deny it?"

The girl was too bewildered to speak.

"Have you so soon forgotten?" he went on gently. "You said,-in a whisper, 'tis true, but I heard it well enough-'Yourself, my Lord.' Could a man fail to answer such a challenge from such lips, Mistress Margaret? I looked at you, and you smiled. I read in your eyes that I was right, that I had gained your favour and the prize might be mine. What wonder that I fell under such a temptation? The rest,-I do not believe they even heard you. None

of them knew what happened. It was what it may remain,- -a secret between you and me.”

"Ah! Why did you tell me?" the girl murmured. "It was not, then, -it was not what you meant-and Lady Marlowe—

"My Lady offered you the best match in her power, for your grandfather's sake and for reasons of her own. She offered you her own young son, my brother Richard. As for me, I was out of the question. Who should dream that an old fellow like Harry Marlowe should wish to marry, -the Queen's man, hers only till now, and with troubles behind him and before? So I came gaily to plead young Dick's cause. When I saw you at the window, my heart misgave me as to this mission of mine. When you spoke, taking captive the very words on my lips, I was conquered, and became a traitor. But poor Dick has not seen you, and I shall soon make my peace with my Lady. She has twitted me with my solitary ways, many a time. If I have at last seen the lady of my heart, who shall say me nay?"

"But why did you tell me?" Meg said more loudly, and her hand rested heavily on his shoulder.

Looking up in the darkness at the pale face just above him, he answered, his deep voice a little uncertain: "I believed that you partly knew already, and then, sweetheart, I half repented me of what I had done. Even now, if you command, it is not too late. Now that you know all, take your choice between us. Dick is a handsome lad; his mother has cockered him, but he is a bold fellow for all that,-a better mate for you, Mistress Margaret, than this Harry of yours, with the freshness of your own age, and a whole life to give to you instead of half a one."

Meg thrilled as he spoke. "This Harry of mine!" she said, so low that ears a yard away would not have caught it.

"Ah! Then stoop your face to me, Meg!" he said, and caught her to his breast.

As she lay there, she presently found breath to whisper, "But I never said it!"

"What!" he cried, starting. "You never said, 'Yourself, my Lord'?" "Surely not! How should I have been so bold, so unwomanly?"

"Then who said it, if not you? Did you hear it?"

"Yes,-I believe so-but I cannot tell where it came from."

"The Devil!" said Harry Marlowe, thoughtfully.

"No, my guardian angel!" she softly replied to him.

A pair of lovers in a lane!-though the lovers were ill-matched, at least in age, and though the lane was not grassy and sweet, with oak-trees shading it and wild roses waving over it, but a dark, ditch-like way filled with snow, evil-smelling, bounded by black towering walls and the half-ruinous backs of poor and grimy houses. It was all the same to Lord Marlowe and his love. Meg might have known him always, loved him always, such were the peace and trust with which she rested in his arms, warm in the bitter cold of that Christmas morning,-yet it was not twelve hours since they first met. If the saw be true, Happy's the wooing that's not long a-doing, Harry and his Meg should have been in bliss for evermore. But to outside eyes that lacked understanding, this adventure was proving my Lord without question mad. Was this the way that noble ladies were sought and won? Good and evil were ready for once to join in opposition to this wild autocrat of a lover.

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