last question.

"Who?"

"His housecarles outside there."

"He has promised that they shall not touch thee. But how knowest thou what
is in this letter?"

"I will take it," said Martin: he held out his hand, took it and looked at
it, but upside down, and without any attempt to read it.

"His own mother," said he, after a while.

"What is that to thee?" said Lady Godiva, blushing and kindling.

"Nothing: I had no mother. But God has one!"

"What meanest thou, knave? Wilt thou take the letter or no?"

"I will take it." And he again looked at it without rising off his knee.
"His own father, too."

"What is that to thee, I say again?"

"Nothing: I have no father. But God's Son has one!"

"What wilt thou, thou strange man?" asked she, puzzled and
half-frightened; "and how camest thou to know what is in this letter?"