Leonard stood one moment with a look of agonised perplexity over his face. Then he said, “If I consent, am I at liberty, free at once to depart?” “Aye,” said Whitburn. “So you fulfil your contract, the rest is nought to me.” “I am then at liberty? Free to carry my sword to my Queen and King?” “Free.” “You swear it, on the holy cross?” Lord Whitburn held up the cross hilt of his sword before him, and made oath on it that when once married to his daughter, Leonard Copeland was no longer his prisoner. Grisell through her veil read on the youthful face a look of grief and renunciation; he was sacrificing his love to the needs of King and country, and his words chimed in with her conviction. “Sir, I am ready. If it were myself alone, I would die rather than be false to my love, but my Queen needs good swords and faithful hearts, and I may not fail her. I am ready!” “It is well!” said Lord Whitburn. “Ho, you there! Bring the horses to the door.” Grisell, in all the strange suspense of that decision, had been thinking of Sir Gawaine, whose lines rang in her head, but that look of grief roused other feelings. Sir Gawaine had no other love to sacrifice. “Sir! sir!” she cried, as her father turned to bid her mount the pillion behind Ridley. “Can you not let him go free without? I always looked to a cloister.” “That is for you and he to settle, girl. Obey me now, or it will be the worse for him and you.” “One word I would say,” added the mother. “How far hath this matter with the Audley maid gone? There is no troth plight, I trow?” “No, by all that is holy, no. Would the lad not have pleaded it if there had been? No more dilly-dallying. Up on the horse, Grisly, and have done with it. We will show the young recreant how promises are kept in Durham County.” He dragged rather than led his daughter to the door, and lifted her passively to the pillion seat behind Cuthbert Ridley. A fine horse, Copeland’s own, was waiting for him. He was allowed to ride freely, but old Whitburn kept close beside him, so that escape would have been impossible. He was in the armour in which he had fought, dimmed and dust-stained, but still glancing in the morning sun, which glittered on the sea, though a heavy western thunder-cloud, purple in the sun, was rising in front of this strange bridal cavalcade. It was overhead by the time the church was reached, and the heavy rain that began to fall caused the priest to bid the whole party come within for the part of the ceremony usually performed outside the west door.