Dick stood stock-still and stared at her. There was a fire on the hearth, for the spring evenings were cold, and she stood in the light of it, wonderfully dressed in a pale-blue brocade, with hare-bells in her hair. "Come and speak to me, Dick." She held out her hand. Dick sprang across the floor, and flung himself on his knees to kiss her hand and thank her. "Little courtier," she said. "Where did you learn such manners?" "Ah, my Lady, how shall I ever thank you?" She sat down and drew him towards her. "Dick," she said, "did you never hear that the Byngs and the Chesters were cousins?" "No, madam!" "Ah, but they are! Lady Chester was Mistress Elizabeth Byng." "I never heard of it, madam," said Dick. "Will you not have me for a cousin, Dick?" she asked persuasively. "Ay, that will I though!" he cried eagerly. He would have said the same had she proposed to be his grandmother. He cared not a straw how it might have come about. It was enough for him that she desired to be akin to him--poor, lonely little wretch. Why, what a different thing life might be, in this room, with such a cousin! "Dick, will you tell me all about yourself some day?" she asked next. "Now, madam--" "Say 'Cousin Dorothy'," she said. "Now, Cousin Dorothy. You will not tell anyone? You will never let them take me away?" He looked up wistfully. "No one shall part you from me, Dick. That I promise you," she said, kissing him. "You shall stay with me always if you care, Dick. I live here quite alone. I doubt whether anyone in the world remembers poor Dorothy Byng. In all this long war, Dick, neither friend nor foe has broken the quiet of our life here. We have never seen so much as a plume or a crop-head from the windows. You will be safe enough here, if you think you can bide in such a dull place." She had won Dick's confidence as completely as Giles and his master had done. Sitting there at her knee, he told her his story as well as he could. Some of the incidents puzzled her, explain them how he would, stumbling amongst the current language of the Seven Thorns. On that, and on many other occasions, she made him tell his tale again and again. There were parts of it quite beyond her credence. For one thing, she would not believe the Cavaliers wanted Dick for punishment, or that the two who came to the inn were on the look-out for him, or remembered, or recognized him. She tried to reason away his fear of detection, for she saw it weighed on his mind. "When you're stronger, Dick, you'll forget all about it. Someone has deceived you about the proclamation. You misunderstood the officers at the inn." "But there was the one on the road," Dick reminded her. "The one sent to bring me back." "We don't understand the whole matter, 'tis plain, Dick," she said thoughtfully. "And the only way to make it all clear is to enquire amongst His Majesty's forces." But this suggestion almost threw Dick into a frenzy of terror.