For a moment Robert Sadler was silent. "That is it," he thought. "She
will send him packing back to his uncle. The lad wishes not to go.
Therefore he looks down. Now is the time to ask him about the postern
key. When one is angered a little then is when he telleth what he hath
discovered."

He cast a searching look at Hugo, but by it he learned nothing. The boy
now began to take his way toward the tilt-yard, and Robert Sadler kept
close at his side, talking as he went.

"Women be by nature suspicious, you will find," he began. "They be ever
thinking some one will be breaking in; and ever for having some one on
guard. Her ladyship now--surely thou knowest she keepeth the postern
key herself, and will trust no one with it. The grooms and the warder
at the great gate she will trust, but it is the postern she feareth,
because she thinketh an enemy might be secretly admitted there. Knowest
thou where she keepeth the key? I would but know in case my lord
returneth suddenly, and, perchance, pursued, since the king will have
his head or ever he cometh to his home, he hath such an enmity against
him. And all because my lord spake freely on the murder of Arthur and
other like matters. He might be sped to his death awaiting the opening
of the postern while her ladyship was coming with the key."

"Cometh the lord soon, then?" asked Hugo, interestedly.

"That no man can tell," answered Robert Sadler. "He is now safe over
sea in France; but he might be lured back if he knew the young lord
Josceline was in peril."