"Ay," he said, "that's it, Dick. These great ladies! They will send their slaves to the ends of the earth to fetch them a bodkin. Call them cowards, yet expect their hearts to be laid at their feet with a 'Do me the honour to tread here, madam'! And you are bent upon serving this fastidious dame, Dick? And upon making me serve her too?" "For me," said Dick, "I would die for her. I have said what she hath done for me. And there is another reason, if I have not shown you, sir, why I must help her." "And the other reason?" Dick looked round. The light was very dim now, but he could see the gentleman in white impatiently tapping his leg with his rapier-sheath, his face turned to the window. "'Tis about my brother, who is dead," said Dick in a low voice. "'Tis her story, told me in--in confidence. But I think, sir, no one should hear it but you, and you because you will help." "Quite right," said Giles's master, with a swift glance towards the window. "You may whisper." He bent his head, and Dick, slipping his arm round his neck, whispered his tale. The gentleman in white stood so strangely still he might have been fairly accused of holding his breath to hear the whisper. "Well," said Giles's master at the close, "I hold you're right, Dick. Your very life is hers so long as she needs it. Should she ever find anyone else to make her happy, will you come to me? I confess I should like you about me. True, I have Giles; but Giles, you may have noticed, Giles is a very remarkable person." "Ay, indeed!" was Dick's hearty response. "And to be trusted," continued his master, "with great matters. I have to send him from me; and then--well, Dick--I have no one near me quite so faithful as Giles. I don't know whether I am called a good master or not. It seems to me I bring my servants nothing but misfortune and privation--sometimes death." He sighed. Dick laid his hand on his friend's affectionately. "I'd never care for that, sir," he said earnestly. "I've been near death. It doesn't matter. If I could be with you, and sometimes see dear Giles, I'd be quite happy, if Cousin Dorothy was happy too. Why, sir, I've been beaten and been hungered by those I served. Do you think mere privation with you and Giles would be hard?" Just then the door opened softly, a curtain was drawn back, and a servant appeared with lights. "If you would have the goodness to say we do not need them," said Giles's master to the gentleman in white. "Thanks." The servant retreated, bowing; but Dick had seen the lights fall on the gentleman in white--a figure as superb as Prince Rupert's and a dress beautiful and rich. A jewel had flashed in his sword-hilt, and a "George" hung from a blue ribbon at his neck. What a thing to be a courtier!