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“And, as you perceive, in his own handwriting.” She folded up the paper and, replacing it, addressed my Master. “Your visitors, sir, deserve some refreshment for their pains and courtesy.”

And that was the end of the conference. What that paper contained I know as little as I know by what infernal sorcery it was prepared. Master Porson folded it up tight in his hand, glancing dubiously at Sir Nicholas. My lady stood smiling upon the both for a moment, then dismissed me to the kitchens upon a pretended errand. They were gone when I returned, nor did I again set eyes upon the Commissioner or the factor. It is true that the Emperor did about this time break his pledge with our King Henry and marry a princess of Portugal; and some of high office in England were not sorry therefore. But of this enough.

As the days wore on and we heard no more of the wreck, my Master and Mistress settled down to that retirement from the world which is by custom allowed to the newly married, but which with them was to last to the end. A life of love it was; but–God help us!–no life of happiness; rather, in process of days, a life of torment. Can I tell you how it was? At first to see them together was like looking through a glass upon a picture; a picture gallant and beautiful yet removed behind a screen and not of this world. Suppose now that by little and little the glass began to be flawed, or the picture behind it to crumble (you could not tell which) until when it smiled it smiled wryly, until rocks toppled and figures fell askew, yet still kept up their pretence of play against the distorted woodland. Nay, it was worse than this: fifty times worse. For while the fair show tottered, my Master and Mistress clung to their love; and yet it was just their love which kept the foundations rocking.

They lived for each other. They neither visited nor received visits. Yet they were often, and by degrees oftener, apart; my Master locked up with his books, my Mistress roaming the walls with her hound or seated by her lattice high on the seaward side of the castle. Sometimes (but this was usually on moonlit nights or windless evenings when the sun sank clear to view over our broad bay) she would take up her lute and touch it to one of those outlandish love-chants with which she had first wiled my Master’s heart to her. As time went on, stories came to us that these chants, which fell so softly on the ears of us as we went about the rooms and gardens, had been heard by fishermen riding by their nets far in the offing–so far away (I have heard) as the Scillies; and there were tales of men who, as they listened, had seen the ghosts of drowned mariners rising and falling on the moon-rays, or floating with their white faces thrown back while they drank in the music; yea, even echoing the words of the song in whispers like the flutter of birds’ wings.

When first the word crept about that she was a witch I cannot certainly say. But in time it did; and, what is more–though I will swear that no word of Gil Perez’ confession ever passed my lips–the common folk soon held it for a certainty that the cargo saved from the Saint Andrew had been saved by her magic only; that the plate and rich stuffs seen by my own eyes were but cheating simulacra, and had turned into rubbish at midnight, scarce an hour before the assault on the Portuguese.

I have wondered since if ’twas this rumour and some belief in it which held Messrs. Saint Aubyn and Godolphin from offering any further attack on us. You might say that it was open to them, so believing, to have denounced her publicly. But in our country Holy Church had little hold–scarce more than the King’s law itself in such matters; and within my memory it has always come easier to us to fear witch-craft than to denounce it. Also (and it concerns my tale) the three years which followed the stranding of the Saint Andrew were remarkable for a great number of wrecks upon our coast. In that short time we of our parish and the men of St. Hilary upon our north were between us favoured with no fewer than fourteen; the most of them vessels of good burden. Of any hand in bringing them ashore I know our gentry to have been innocent. Still, there were pickings; and finding that my Master held aloof from all share in such and (as far as could be) held his servants aloof, our neighbours, though not accepting this for quittance, forbore to press the affair of the Saint Andrew further than by spreading injurious tales and whispers.