The Heart

"Well," said Captain Tabor, "then must you and Mistress Catherine

Cavendish show the goods to the maid, and say naught as to the means

by which you came by them; tell her they are landed from the Golden

Horn, as indeed they will be; let her think aught she chooses, that

they are indeed her own, purchased for her by her sister or her

lovers, if she choose to think so, and bid her display them with no

ado to Madam Cavendish, if she value the safety of the others who

are concerned in this. Betwixt the mystery and the fright and the

sight of the trinkets, if she be aught on the pattern of any other

maid, show them she will, and hold her tongue till she be out of her

grandmother's presence."

"It can be but tried," said I.

Then the captain sprang out on deck, and ordered a boat lowered, and

presently had set me ashore, and was himself, with a half-dozen

sailors, fighting way down-stream.

I found my horse on the bank where I had left him, and by him,

waiting anxiously, Catherine Cavendish. She listened with deepening

eyes while I told her Captain Tabor's scheme, and when I had done

looked at me with her beautiful mouth set and her face as white as a

white flower on a bush beside her. "Mary shall show the goods," said

she. "Such a story will I tell her as will make her innocent of

aught save bewilderment, and as for you and me, we are both of us

ready to burn for a lie for the sake of her."