A chill had fallen with the setting of the sun. He shivered again, and found that his limbs were stiff beneath him; he pushed the dark hair back from his face and gazed before him, trying to conjure the figure of the dancer in the pink gauze and blue jet out of the encroaching shadows. But he knew that it was useless, that she was dead and buried with all those other women. And death had him by the throat, was struggling with him even now, and he must prepare himself to go down into the darkness that enveloped them. He went upstairs to the room he called his own; as he opened the door of it he heard steps below, and leaning over the rails saw the old woman who owned the inn enter with a basket of grapes on her grey head. The young Duke blew her a kiss; she was the last woman whom he would ever see. He entered his room; the flies still buzzed round the stale bread and dirty glass, but the golden pool of sunlight had gone from the floor. “Not one of those women,” reflected Philip Wharton, “ever thought that I should die–like this!” So saying the young rake seated himself heavily and wearily in his former seat by the table and stretched out his hand for his pipe which lay next the glass. But before he touched it, he felt a slight cold touch on his shoulder, and thought he heard some one behind him. As he turned to look he drew a long breath. “Why, Lucy—” he said, and on that word–died. DEFEAT EDWARD PLANTAGENET Edward Plantagenet, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Earl of Chester, Lord of Biscay and Uridales, rested at Bordeaux with his brother Johan of Gaunt, Duke of Acquitaine and Lancaster, Earl of Derby, Lincoln and Leicester, Seneschal of England and the English army. Edward of Wales had saved his word; he could not save Acquitaine. He had redeemed the oath sworn before the high God that the treacherous Limoges should pay for its disloyalty. The town lay now a burning ruin; in one day three thousand men, women, and children had atoned with their blood for the falsity of Jean le Cros, Bishop of Limoges. For Edward had sworn by his father’s soul to wipe out every life in Limoges. Chained and bare-headed the Bishop had been brought before the Prince, and had only been spared by the intercession of Johan of Gaunt, for Edward had vowed by God and St. George that the arch traitor should perish. Yet at this he stayed his hand and came to Bordeaux, carried in a litter, his vengeance satisfied but his chivalry stained by the innocent blood of churls, an unhappy knight, ill at ease in mind and body, without money for his men-at-arms, with Acquitaine slipping from him. East and south and north the French were advancing, and he had no means to stay them.