"And I, please your Highness, bring you the gold to pay them," said
the trader, bluntly.

The king bit his lip, and then burst into his usual merry laugh.

"Thou art in the right, Master Alwyn. Finish counting the pieces, and
then go and consult with my chamberlain,--he must off with the cock-
crow; but, since ye seem to understand each other, he shall make thee
his lieutenant of search, and I will sign any order he pleases for the
recovery of the lost wisdom and the stolen beauty. Go and calm
thyself, Hastings."

"I will attend you presently, my lord," said Alwyn, aside, "in your
own apartment."

"Do so," said Hastings; and, grateful for the king's consideration, he
sought his rooms. There, indeed, Alwyn soon joined him, and learned
from the nobleman what filled him at once with joy and terror.
Knowing that Warner and Sibyll had left the Tower, he had surmised
that the girl's virtue had at last succumbed; and it delighted him to
hear from Lord Hastings, whose word to men was never questionable, the
solemn assurance of her unstained chastity. But he trembled at this
mysterious disappearance, and knew not to whom to impute the snare,
till the penetration of Hastings suddenly alighted near, at least, to
the clew. "The Duchess of Bedford," said he, "ever increasing in
superstition as danger increases, may have desired to refind so great
a scholar and reputed an astrologer and magician; if so, all is safe.
On the other hand, her favourite, the friar, ever bore a jealous
grudge to poor Adam, and may have sought to abstract him from her
grace's search; here there may be molestation to Adam, but surely no