Blanche was soon asleep; but there was little sleep for Clare that night. Nor was there much for Rachel. Since Margaret's marriage, Lucrece had shared her aunt's chamber; for it would have been thought preposterous in the Elizabethan era to give a young girl a bedroom to herself. Rachel watched her niece narrowly; but Lucrece neither said nor did anything from which the least information could be gleaned. She was neither elated nor depressed, but just as usual,--demure, slippery, and unaccountable. Rachel kept her eye also, like an amateur detective, upon Arthur. He came frequently, and generally managed to get a walk with Lucrece in the garden. On two occasions the detective, seated at her own window, which overlooked the garden, saw that Arthur was entreating or urging something, to which Lucrece would not consent. The month of Sir Piers Feversham's stay was drawing to a close, and still Rachel had not spoken to her brother about Lucrece. She felt considerably puzzled as to what it would be either right or wise to do. Lucrece was no foolish, romantic, inexperienced child like Blanche, but a woman of considerable worldly wisdom and strong self-reliance. It was no treachery to interfere with her, in her aunt's eyes, since Lucrece herself had been the traitor; and for Clare's sake Rachel longed to rescue Arthur, whom she considered infatuated and misled. Before Rachel had been able to make up her mind on this point, one Saturday afternoon Sir Thomas sought her, and asked her to come to the library. "Rachel," he said, "I would fain have thy counsel. Sir Piers Feversham--much to mine amazing--hath made me offer of service [courtship] for Lucrece. What thinkest thereon?" "Brother, leave her go!" "He is by three years elder than I, Rachel." "Ne'er mind thou." "Methinks he should make the maid a good husband?" remarked Sir Thomas interrogatively. "Better than she shall make him a wife," said Rachel grimly. "Rachel!" "Brother, I have ne'er said this to thee aforetime; but my true conviction is that Lucrece is a mischief-maker, and until she be hence, there is like to be little peace for any. I saw not all things at the first; but I can tell thee now that she hath won Arthur Tremayne into her toils, and methinks she tried hard to compass Don Juan. If she will wed with Sir Piers (and he dare venture on her!) let it be so: he is old enough to have a care of himself; and she is less like to wreck his life than she should be with a younger man. In good sooth, there is all the less of it to wreck." "Yet, Rachel, if the maid be entangled with Arthur--" "Make thy mind easy, Tom. 'Tis Arthur is entangled, not she. Trust her for that! She hath good enough scissors for the cutting of a like knot." "Arthur ne'er spake word to me," said Sir Thomas, with a perplexed, meditative air.