“How little is your all!” exclaimed Cicely.  “Yet, ’tis something.  Oh! why should a married man stop across the seas to be revenged on poor ignorant Turks?”

“Why should he not?” interrupted Emlyn, “when he deems himself a widower, as does your lord?”

“Yes, I forgot; he thinks me dead, who doubtless himself will be dead, if he is not so already, seeing that those wicked, murderous Turks will kill him,” and she began to weep.

“I should have added,” said Jacob hastily, “that in a second letter, of later date, the ambassador declares that the Emperor’s war against the Turks is finished for this season, and that the Englishmen who were with him fought with great honour and were all escaped unharmed, though this time he gives no names.”

“All escaped!  If my husband were dead, who could not die meanly or without fame, how could he say that they were all escaped?  Nay, nay; he lives, though who knows if he will return?  Perchance he will wander off elsewhere, or stay and wed again.”

“Impossible,” said old Jacob, bowing to her; “having called you wife—­impossible.”

“Impossible,” echoed Emlyn, “having such a score to settle with yonder Maldon!  A man may forget his love, especially if he deems her buried.  But as he stayed foreign to fight the Turk, who wronged him, so he’ll come home to fight the Abbot, who ruined him and slew his bride.”

There followed a silence, which the goldsmith, who felt it somewhat painful, hastened to break, saying—­

“Yes, doubtless he will come home; for aught we know he may be here already.  But meanwhile we also have our score against this Abbot, a bad one, though think not for his sake that all Abbots are bad, for I have known some who might be counted angels upon earth, and, having gone to martyrdom, doubtless to-day are angels in heaven.  Now, my Lady, I will tell you what I have done, hoping that it will please you better than it does me.  Last night I saw the Lord Cromwell, with whom I have many dealings, at his house in Austin Friars, and told him the case, of which, as I thought, that false villain Legh had said nothing to him, purposing to pick the plums out of the pudding ere he handed on the suet to his master.  He read your deeds and hunted up some petition from the Abbot, with which he compared them; then made a note of my demands and asked straight out—­How much?

“I told him L1000 on loan to the King, which would not be asked for back again, the said loan to be discharged by the grant to me—­that is, to you—­of all the Abbey lands, in addition to your own, when the said Abbey lands are sequestered, as they will be shortly.  To this he agreed, on behalf of his Grace, who needs money much, but inquired as to himself.  I replied L500 for him and his jackals, including Dr. Legh, of which no account would be asked.  He told me it was not enough, for after the jackals had their pickings nothing would be left for him but the bones; I, who asked so much, must offer more, and he made as though to dismiss me.  At the door I turned and said I had a wonderful pink pearl that he, who loved jewels, might like to see—­a pink pearl worth many abbeys.  He said, ‘Show it;’ and, oh! he gloated over it like a maid over her first love-letter.  ‘If there were two of these, now!’ he whispered.