"So!" said he. "Thou, at least, wert real, and not a phantom in those black dreams where I was laboring. Thou hast been at my side the livelong night?" Merrylips nodded. She gave him the flasket, which still held a little of the wine and water, and the bread which was in her pocket, and she sat by him, while he propped himself on his elbow and ate and drank. "I saw thee yesterday," said Fowell, presently. "In the courtyard," answered Merrylips, in a low voice. "When Miles Digby--he tried to make me, but I didn't! I didn't!" "I remember," said Fowell, and his eyes narrowed at the memory. "Child, what brought thee, bred among such as Digby, to succor me last night?" Merrylips swallowed a lump in her throat before she could answer. Now that she heard Fowell speak in that firm voice, she no longer felt that she was protecting him. Instead she felt little and weary, and herself in sore need of his protection. "It was--because of my brother," she whispered at last. "They made him prisoner, there at Loxford. I hope--perchance--some one had pity on him." She was angry that it should be so, but as she thought of Munn, helpless and ill-treated, perhaps, as Fowell had been, she felt the tears gather upon her lashes. At that Fowell sat up quickly, though he made a wry face at the effort that it cost him. He put his arm about her, and spoke as gently as one of her own Cavalier friends could have spoken. "Cheerly, my lad! Tell me the name of this brother of thine, and when I come clear of Monksfield, I promise thee I'll do my best endeavor to seek him out and requite him for thy tenderness." She whispered the name, "Munn Venner," and she felt the start of surprise that Fowell gave. "Venner?" said he. "Sure, thou art never one of the Venners of Walsover? Then by all that's marvellous I knew thine eldest brother, Tom Venner, two years agone at New College. A proper merry lad he was! And thou art a brother of Tom's! Thou must be the little one he called Flip, though I had judged him to be older." Merrylips answered neither yes nor no. She hoped it was no fib to let Dick Fowell think that she was her brother Flip, and not a little girl. Whatever happened, she must keep the secret that Munn had bidden her to keep. But she thought it no harm, in answer to Fowell's questions, to tell him how she had dwelt in Will Lowry's household at Larkland and had come to Monksfield by Munn's aid. Indeed she was glad to talk with Fowell. He seemed like an old friend, since he had known her brother Longkin at Oxford. But soon Dick Fowell said: "I'm loath to part with thee, little truepenny, but haply thy gentle friends in garrison will not be over-pleased at the company thou art keeping here. Were it not best thou shouldst slip hence and leave me?" Merrylips hesitated, and then he added, smiling:-- "Have no fear, child! Lieutenant Digby and I will do each other no mortal damage."