The noon-hours chimed from the bell-tower, and the sunny beauty of the morning but weighed with heavier sadness on her heart; the song of the birds, the busy hum of the gnats, the joyous ring of the silver bell round her pet fawn's neck, as it darted from her side under the drooping boughs--none touched an answering chord of gladness in her. She stood looking over her stretching woodlands in deep thought, so deep that she heard no step over the lawn beneath, nor saw the frightened rush of the deer, as a boy, crouching among the tangled ferns, sprang up from his hiding-place under the beechen branches, and stood on the terrace before her, craving her pardon in childish, yet fearless tones. She turned, bending on him that glance which had made the over-bold glance of princes fall abashed. The boy was but a little tatterdemalion to have ventured thus abruptly into the presence of the Countess of Castlemaine; still it was with some touch of a page's grace that he bowed before her. "Lady, I crave your pardon, but my master bade me watch for you, though I watched till midnight." "Your master?" A flush, warm as that on the leaves of the musk-roses, rose to her face for an instant, then faded as suddenly. The boy did not notice her words, but went on in an eager whisper, glancing anxiously round, as a hare would glance fearing the hunters. "And told me when I saw you not to speak his name, but only to give you this as his gage, that though all else is lost he has not forgot _his_ honor nor _your_ will." Cecil Castlemaine spoke no word, but she stretched out her hand and took it--her own costly toy of cambric and lace, with her broidered shield and coronet. "Your master! Then--he lives?" "Lady, he bade me say no more. You have his message; I must tell no further." She laid her hand upon his shoulder, a light, snow-white hand, yet one that held him now in a clasp of steel. "Child! answer me at your peril! Tell me of him whom you call your master. Tell me all--quick--quick!" "You are his friend?" "His friend? My Heaven! Speak on!" "He bade me tell no more on peril of his heaviest anger; but if you _are_ his friend, I sure may speak what you should know without me. It is a poor friend, lady, who has need to ask whether another be dead or living!" The scarlet blood flamed in the Countess's blanched face, she signed him on with impetuous command; she was unused to disobedience, and the child's words cut her to the quick.