"Oh, Anthony!" she cried, "you know how it is with me. I could not help it. I am not ashamed of it. God Almighty knows all, and is not wrath with me. So I went down and was in the crowd as he came down again with the mayor, Mr. Hamon; we all made way for them, and the men cheered themselves scarlet; but he came down cool and quiet; you know his way--with his eyes half shut; and--and--he was so brown; and he looks sad--and he had a great plaister on the left temple. And then he saw me." Isabel sprang up, and came up to Anthony and took his hands. "Oh! Anthony; I was very happy then; because he took off his cap and bowed; and his face was all lighted; and he took my hand and kissed it--and then made Mr. Hamon known to me. The crowd laughed and said things--but I did not care; and he soon silenced them, he looked round so fiercely; and then I went on board with him--he would have it so--and he showed us everything--and we sat a little in the cabin; and he told me of his wife and child. She is the daughter of a Plymouth minister; he knew her when he was with Drake; and he told me all about her, so you see----" Isabel broke off; and sat down in the high window seat. "And then he asked me about you; and I said you were here; and that we were going to stay a little while with Mr. Buxton of Stanfield--you see I knew we could trust him; and Mr. Hamon was in the passage just then looking at the guns; and then a sailor came in to say that all was ready; and so we came away. But it was so good to see him again; and to know that he was so happy." Anthony looked at his sister in astonishment; her quiet manner was gone, and she was talking again almost like an excited child; and so happily. It was very strange, he thought. He sat down beside her. "Oh, Anthony!" she said, "do you understand? I love him dearly still; and his wife and child too. God bless them all and keep them!" The mystery was still deep to him; and he feared to say what he should not; so he kissed Isabel silently; and the two sat there together and looked out over the crowding red roofs to the glowing western sky across the bay below them. CHAPTER III HOME-COMING It was a stormy summer evening as the brother and sister rode up between the last long hills that led to Great Keynes. A south-west wind had been rising all day, that same wind that was now driving the ruined Armada up into the fierce North Sea, with the fiercer men behind to bar the return. But here, twenty miles inland, with the high south-downs to break the gale, the riders were in comparative quiet, though the great trees overhead tossed their heavy rustling heads as the gusts struck them now and again.