"Coward loons as ye are!--are ye frightened of a girl?" said Sir Piers with a harsh laugh, and he came forward himself. "Lady Margaret, there is no need to injure you unless you choose. Please yourself. I am going to arrest this young knight." But for one second, Sir Piers waited himself. Those around mistook it for that knightly courtesy of which there was none in him. They did not know that suddenly, to him, out of Margaret's pleading eyes looked the eyes of the dead sister, Serena de Rievaulx, and it seemed to him as though soft child-fingers held him off for an instant. He had never loved any mortal thing but that dead child. With one passionate, pleading gaze at Sir Piers, Margaret laid her head on the breast of Sir Richard, and sobbed as though her heart were breaking. "My Lord, my Lord!" came, painfully mixed with long-drawn sobs, from the lips of the young bride. "My own, own Richard! And only two months since we were married!--Have you the heart to part us?" she cried, suddenly turning to Sir Piers. "Did you never love any one?" "Never, Madam." For once in his life, Sir Piers spoke truth, Never-- except Serena: and not much then. "Brute!" And with this calumnious epithet--for brutes can love dearly-- Margaret resumed her former attitude. "Lady Margaret, I must trouble you," said Sir Piers, in tones of hardness veneered with civility. "My darling, you must let me go," interposed the young Earl of Gloucester, who seemed scarcely less miserable than his bride. "Magot, my child, we may not stay justice," said the distressed tones of her father. Yet she held tight until Sir Piers tore her away. "Look to the damsel," he condescended to say, with a glance at Doucebelle and Bruno. "Oh, ha!--where is the priest that blessed this wedding? I must have him." "There was no priest," sobbed the Countess, lifting her head from her husband's arm, where she had let it sink: "it was _per verba depresenti_." "That we will see," was the cool response of Sir Piers. "Take all the priests, Sir Drew.--Now, my Lady!" "Fare thee well, my jewel," said Earl Hubert, kissing the brow of the Countess. "Poor little Magot!--farewell, too." "Sir Hubert, my Lord, forgive me! I meant no ill." "Forgive thee?" said the Earl, with a smile, and again kissing his wife's brow. "I could not do otherwise, my Margaret.--Now, Sir Piers, we are your prisoners." "These little amenities being disposed of," sneered Sir Piers. "I suppose women must cry over something:--kind, I should think, to give them something to cry about.--March out the prisoners."