"No," I said, not unwilling to make a small sensation. "This touches your Grace." "Hush!" she cried, raising one imperious finger. "Transgressing already? From this time forth I am Mistress Bertram, remember. But come," she went on, eying the packet with the seal inquisitively, "how does it touch me?" I put it silently into her hands, and she opened it and read a few lines, her husband peeping over her shoulder. As she read her brow darkened, her eyes grew hard. Master Bertie's face changed with hers, and they both peeped suddenly at me over the edge of the parchment, suspicion and hostility in their glances. "How came you by this, young sir?" he said slowly, after a long pause. "Have we escaped Peter to fall into the hands of Paul?" "No, no!" I cried hurriedly. I saw that I had made a greater sensation than I had bargained for. I hastened to tell them how I had met with Gardiner's servant at Stony Stratford, and how I had become possessed of his credentials. They laughed of course--indeed they laughed so loudly that the placid Dutchmen, standing aft with their hands in their breeches-pockets, stared open-mouthed at us, and the kindred cattle on the bank looked mildly up from the knee-deep grass. "And what was the other packet?" the Duchess asked presently. "Is that it in your hand?" "Yes," I answered, holding it up with some reluctance. "It seems to be a letter addressed to Mistress Clarence." "Clarence!" she cried. "Clarence!" arresting the hand she was extending. "What! Here is our friend again then. What is in it? You have opened it?" "No." "You have not? Then quick, open it!" she exclaimed. "This too touches us, I will bet a penny. Let us see at once what it contains. Clarence indeed! Perhaps we may have him on the hip yet, the arch-traitor!" But I held the pocket-book back, though my cheeks reddened and I knew I must seem foolish. They made certain that this letter was a communication to some spy, probably to Clarence himself under cover of a feminine address. Perhaps it was, but it bore a woman's name and it was sealed; and foolish though I might be, I would not betray the woman's secret. "No, madam," I said confused, awkward, stammering, yet withholding it with a secret obstinacy; "pardon me if I do not obey you--if I do not let this be opened. It may be what you say," I added with an effort; "but it may also contain an honest secret, and that a woman's." "What do you say?" cried the Duchess; "here are scruples!" At that her husband smiled, and I looked in despair from him to Mistress Anne. Would she sympathize with my feelings? I found that she had turned her back on us, and was gazing over the side. "Do you really mean," continued the Duchess, tapping her foot sharply on the deck, "that you are not going to open that, you foolish boy?" "I do--with your Grace's leave," I answered.