Oh! the lot of a lover is hard, at least if he has set all his heart on the cast, as I had done, and verily, as our Scots saw runs, "women are kittle cattle." It is a strange thing that one who has learned not to blench from a bare blade, or in bursting of cannon-balls and flight of arrows, should so easily be daunted where a weak girl is concerned; yet so it was in my case.

I know not if I feared more than now when Brother Thomas had me in the still chamber, alone at his mercy.
So the minutes went by, the sun and shade flickering through the boughs of the mulberry-tree, and the time seemed long.

Perchance, I thought, there had been war, as Charlotte had said, and my lady had departed in anger with her father, and I was all undone.

Yet I dared not go to seek them in the house, not knowing how matters were passing, and whether I should do good or harm.

So I waited, and at length Charlotte came forth alone.