He came in without a word, set his hands on the back of the settle, and stared at the fire. Yeoland had started up; she sat huddled in the angle, looking in his face with a mute surmise. Fulviac’s face was sorrowful, yet strong as steel; the lips were firm, the eyes sullen and sad. He was as a man who stared ruin betwixt the brows, nor quailed from the scrutiny though death stood ready on the threshold. "Cloak yourself," he said to her at last; "be speedy; buckle this purse to your girdle." She sprang up as the leather pouch rattled on the settle, and stood facing Fulviac with her back to the fire. "Whither do we ride?" "I send you under escort to Gilderoy." "And you?" He smiled, tightened his sword belt with a vicious gesture, and still stared at the hearth. "My lot lies here," he said to her; "I meet my doom alone. What need to drag you deeper into the dark?" She understood him on the instant, and the black thoughts moving in his mind. Disasters thickened about the cliff; perils were clamorous as the wind-rocked trees. Fulviac feared the worst; she knew that from his face. "You send me to Gilderoy?" she said. "I have so determined it." "And why?" "Need you doubt my discretion?" The flames flashed and gleamed upon his breastplate, and deepened the shadows upon his face. His eyes were sorrowful, yet full of a strenuous fire. "The sky darkens," he said to her, "and the King’s hosts watch the forest. I had thought to draw them into the wilds, but the fox of Lauretia has smelt a snare. Our stores lessen; we are in the last trench." She moved away into a dark corner of the room, raised the carved lid of a chest, and began to draw clothes therefrom, fingering them listlessly, as though her thoughts wavered. Fulviac leant with folded arms upon the settle, seemed even oblivious of her presence under the burden of his fate. "Fulviac," she said at last, glancing at him over a drooping shoulder. He turned his head and looked at her. "Must I go then to Gilderoy?" "The road is open," he answered, with no obvious kindling of his sympathy; "there will be bloody work here anon; you will be safer behind stone walls." "And the King?" she asked him. He straightened suddenly, like a man tossing some great burden from off his soul. "Ha, girl! are you blind as to what shall follow? Richard of the Iron Hand waits for us with fivescore thousand men. We shall fight--by God, yes!--and make a bloody end; there will be much slaughter and work for the sword. The King will crush us as a falling rock crushes a scorpion. There will be no mercy. Death waits. Put on that cloak of thine."