"It should help to open her eyes. Though in sooth I do think they be scantly so close shut as at the first." "Then you will tell the child, good Mistress?" "If you so desire, assuredly: but wherefore not give her to wit yourself?" Sir Thomas evidently shrank from the idea. "For Blanche's sake, I do think it should be better, Sir Thomas. You speak as he that hath heard this right from Don Juan himself; for me, I have but heard it from you." "Well, if needs must--for Blanche's sake, then," said her father, sighing. "Pray you, send the child hither." In another minute Blanche came in, with a warm welcome for her father in eyes and voice. "So thou comest home to-morrow, my skylark!" he said. "Art thou glad, or sorry, Blanche?" "Oh, glad, Father!" "And all we be glad likewise.--Blanche, Don John is gone to London." "Yes, I guessed so much," she answered, in a rather constrained tone. "And ere he went, my darling, he said somewhat unto me which I reckon it best thou shouldst hear likewise." Blanche looked up, surprised and expectant,--perhaps with a shade of fear. Sir Thomas passed his arm round her, and drew her close to him. He anticipated a burst of tears, and was ready to console her. "He told me, dear heart, that he is, and for divers years hath so been, troth-plight unto a maiden of his own land, with whom he shall wed when he is gone home." There was no light in the room but from the fire, and Blanche's head was bent low, so that her father could not see her face. But no tears answered him. No answer came at all. Sir Thomas was astonished. "Doth it grieve thee, my Blanche?" he asked tenderly, when he had waited a moment. He waited still another. Then the reply came. "I suppose it was better I should know it," she said in a cold, hard voice. "So thou seest, dear child, he meant not his fair words." "No," she said, in the same tone. "He meant it not." Sir Thomas let her go. He thought she bore it uncommonly well. She did not care much about it, thank Heaven! He was one of those numerous surface observers who think that a woman cannot be startled if she does not scream, nor be unhappy if she does not weep. Blanche went quietly enough out of the room, saying that she would send Clare. Her father did not see that in the middle of the stairs she paused, with a tight grasp on the banister, till the deadly faintness should pass off which seemed to make the staircase go spinning round her. Clare noticed nothing peculiar when Blanche came into their bedroom, and told her that Sir Thomas was below. But as soon as her sister was gone, Blanche knelt down by the bed, and buried her face in the counterpane.