Bridget said: "God bless him, the pretty lamb!" "Lamb!" said Philip contemptuously. "Lamb, quotha? Lion, more likely--brave little lion, I tell thee. Away with you! You an' your lambs!" CHAPTER XXIII HER LADYSHIP FINISHES HER STORY Dick, racing down the passage, ran up against Giles. "Where's my cousin?" he cried. "Everybody's mad!" "Are you bitten?" Giles enquired. "Your cousin is asking for you, and I have been hunting you this half-hour." He pushed Dick into the oak parlour, and sauntered away himself. "Oh, Dick, dear," cried her Ladyship, "what a hot, tangled, dishevelled young gallant! Come here to me at once, sir! I've something to say." The sight of his cousin, sitting by the casement in her white dress, calmed Dick. He had thought her on her birthday night most beautiful, but her loveliness at this moment filled him with a kind of awe. He flung himself down on the window-seat. "Bridget said--" he began. "Oh, never mind Bridget!" said her Ladyship. "I have a great deal to say, Dick. Do you know this?" She laid in his hand two halves of a gold coin, each attached to a silken cord. "Giles's token!" Dick cried. "The one I gave His Majesty at Lumley." "Yes, and 'tis a coin, Dick, of Scotland, and called a 'bonnet-piece'." Dick was in no mood to be interested in coins. "'Twas Giles's," he observed; "and Bridget--" "Listen, Dick," she entreated. "This piece once belonged to a boy I knew. 'Twas his chief treasure, and he broke it in two to give half to a little maid for a keepsake. When they were older she gave it him back, but in anger, Dick, and misunderstanding. And then he wanted to-- He was a very foolish man, Dick; he thought no one was like her, and that she hated him, so he would destroy himself. But he had a master who loved him, and he took from him the half that had belonged to the maid, and he bound the man to him by an oath, to live, and go away and forget the woman if he could; but for his sake to keep his oath and live. A year after 'twas said the man was dead. But he was only in prison, Dick, and he escaped. His master knew he was living, but no one besides, till, his master having need of him, he came home." Dick was sitting before her, attentive, grave, wide-eyed. "His master made him an earl, Dick, on condition that another title he possessed should go to his younger brother, who had used it believing 'twas his of right. His Majesty said: 'As Sir Richard Chester he held Dent, and as Sir Richard Chester he shall be known.'" But Dick stopped her, catching her hand. "Cousin Dorothy! No matter for that title. Was it Giles?" She nodded. "Who was it your Dorothy insulted in her father's hall years ago, Dick, thinking he'd killed her brother?" "Was it--was it Giles?"