"Yes, and the son of Ferdinand Cludde, whom you also have heard of, of whom the less----"
She stopped, and turned quickly, interrupted by a half-stifled scream. It was a scream full of sudden horror and amazement and fear; and it came from Mistress Anne. The girl had risen, and was gazing at me with distended eyes and blanched cheeks, and hands stretched out to keep me off--gazing, indeed, as if she saw in me some awful portent or some dreadful threat. She did not speak, but she began, without taking her eyes from me, to retreat toward the door.
"Hoity toity!" cried my lady, stamping her foot in anger. "What has happened to the girl? What----"
What, indeed? The Duchess stopped, still more astonished. For, without uttering a word of explanation or apology, Mistress Anne had reached the door, groped blindly for the latch, found it, and gone out, her eyes, with the same haunted look of horror in them, fixed on me to the last.
"Hoity, toity!" the Duchess cried again, looking from one to another of us when Anne had disappeared. "What has come to the little fool? Has she gone crazy?"
I shook my head, too completely at sea even to hazard a conjecture. Master Bertie shook his head also, keeping his eyes glued to the door, as if he could not believe Anne had really gone.
"I said nothing to frighten her!" my lady protested.
"Nothing at all," I answered. For how should the announcement that my real name was Cludde terrify Mistress Anne Brandon nearly out of her senses?
"Well, no," Master Bertie agreed, his thoughtful face more thoughtful than usual; "so far as I heard, you said nothing. But I think, my dear, that you had better follow her and learn what it is. She must be ill."
The Duchess sat down. "I will go by-and-by," she said coolly, at which I was not much surprised, for I have always remarked that women have less sympathy with other women's ailments, especially of the nerves, than have men.
"For the moment I want to scold this brave, silly boy here!" she continued, looking so kindly at me that I blushed again, and forgot all about Mistress Anne. "To think of him leaving his home to become a wandering squire of dames merely because his father was a--well, not quite what he would have liked him to be! I remember something about him," she continued, pursing up her lips, and nodding her head at us. "I fancied him dead, however, years ago. But there! if every one whose father were not quite to his liking left home and went astraying, Master Francis, all sensible folk would turn innkeepers, and make their fortunes."