They drew up without the gate of a large, half-timbered house, which set back from the road in a garden of red roses that dazzled drearily before Hugh’s eyes. “If you will accept of my aid—” he said brusquely to Lois, and had just swung her down from the horse’s back, when he heard the gate clatter open behind him. He turned about, and came face to face with Peregrine Oldesworth. For an instant they confronted each other without speaking, time enough for Hugh to take note that his cousin wore a pompous great pair of boots and a long sword, and had grown a scrap of dark mustache that made him look older than his years. Then said Peregrine, “Well, have you come to fetch back that stolen horse, Master Thief?” “The horse is best off with him who has the wit to keep him,” Hugh replied quickly. “Be assured I had not come to you beneath a white flag, if it had not been to bring Lois hither.” “And a brave convoy you have had, Cousin Lois,” Peregrine said, with a dull flush on his face. “The next time you must roam the country-side, pray you, seek another protector than a scape-gallows like this.” “You know well, Cornet Oldesworth,” Hugh retorted, “that I would pay it back to you, if you durst put that term to me in any other place.” “So you’d like to murder me as you murdered Bellasis?” “Murdered! What do you mean?” The words came faintly from Lois, and to Hugh’s fancy she seemed to draw a little from him. “Maybe he will set it forth to you himself,” sneered Peregrine. “I killed a man in a fair duel,” Hugh replied shortly. “I leave you to your cousin’s care, Lois.” With that he seized Bayard’s bridle and turned away, he cared not whither, only he did not wish to see the horror in Lois’s eyes. “Perhaps you’ll give your horse a rest here at the stable, sir?” the Roundhead corporal at his elbow suggested civilly. Hugh slouched down the road after him, and scarcely heeded Garrett beside him, chuckling, “Well, sir, I knew from the start you were Master Gwyeth.” “Now you’re sure of it, you’d best carry the news to Oxford,” Hugh replied; “I cannot buy silence.” After they were into the cool of the black stable and he had seen Bayard cared for, he sat down on a truss of straw and stared at the motes that swam in the sunlight by the open door. His eyes ached with the light and the dust, and his throat was all choked; he crushed the straws between his fingers as he sat, and in this destruction found his only ease.