"Well, at any rate, I am glad that you are you!" the Duchess answered, rising gayly. "A Cludde? Why, one feels at home again. And yet," she continued, her lips trembling suddenly, and her eyes filling with tears as she looked at me, "there was never house raised yet on nobler deed than yours." "Go! go! go!" cried her husband, seeing my embarrassment. "Go and look to that foolish girl!" "I will! Yet stop!" cried my lady, pausing when she was half way across the floor, and returning, "I was forgetting that I have another letter to open. It is very odd that this letter was never opened before," she continued, producing that which had lain in my haversack. "It has had several narrow escapes. But this time I vow I will see inside it. You give me leave?" "Oh, yes," I said, smiling. "I wash my hands of it. Whoever the Mistress Clarence to whom it is addressed may be, it is enough that her name is Clarence! We have suffered too much at his hands." "I open it, then!" my lady cried dramatically. I nodded. She took her husband's dagger and cut the green silk which bound the packet, and opened and read. Only a few words. Then she stopped, and looking off the paper, shivered. "I do not understand this," she murmured. "What does it mean?" "No good! I'll be sworn!" Master Bertie replied, gazing at her eagerly. "Read it aloud, Katherine." "'To Mistress A---- B----. I am advertised by my trusty agent, Master Clarence, that he hath benefited much by your aid in the matter in which I have employed him. Such service goeth always for much, and never for naught, with me. In which belief confirm yourself. For the present, working with him as heretofore, be secret, and on no account let your true sentiments come to light. So you will be the more valuable to me, even as it is more easy to unfasten a barred door from within than from without.'" Here the Duchess broke off abruptly, and turned on us a face full of wonder. "What does it mean?" she asked. "Is that all?" her husband said. "Not quite," she answered, returning to it, and reading: "'Those whom you have hitherto served have too long made a mockery of sacred things, but their cup is full and the business of seeing that they drink it lieth with me, who am not wont to be slothful in these matters. Be faithful and secret. Good speed and fare you well.--Ste. Winton." "One thing is quite clear!" said Master Bertie slowly. "That you and I are the persons whose cup is full. You remember how you once dressed up a dog in a rochet, and dandled it before Gardiner? And it is our matter in which Clarence is employed. Then who is it who has been cooperating with him, and whose aid is of so much value to him?"