Half an hour later he called his men, mounted his horse, and set out for the Black Moor. _Chapter XVI_ It was Martin Valliant who prayed for the soul of Gilbert Dale, and not Mellis his sister. She was bitter and fierce, and wounded. “I will not ask God or the saints for anything—no, nor Mother Mary. My brother had no sin upon him. Let them look to their own.” So Martin tolled the bell, lit candles, and chanted a death Mass, yet all the while he was thinking of the rebel woman out yonder and of the despair in her eyes. Nature was striking shrewd blows at Martin’s simplicity, using the lecherous treachery of Geraint and the bloody heartlessness of the Lord of Troy to prove to him that there are great violences on earth, lusts and cruelties and loves that no mere saint can conquer. Even Mellis’s wild words of revolt sounded more real and human than the patter of his prayers. He knelt a long while in silence, wondering, asking himself grim questions. How would his father, old Valliant, have acted? Would he have put up a prayer, or donned harness and taken the sword? Mellis would not enter the chapel or kneel before the altar. She went wandering over the moor, recklessly, with that fever of anguish and hatred burning in her blood. She wanted to hurt those men who had killed her brother. She wanted to take the Lord of Troy and give him to some strong man to be throttled. All the love and tenderness that were in her were like perfumes thrown upon the flames. Wearied at last, she came back to the great cross, passed under its shadow, and entering the rest-house, lay down upon her bed. The room was cool and silent, with its massive walls of stone and thickly thatched roof, and not a sound disturbed her; but she could neither sleep nor rest because of the knowledge of the peril that threatened her. Mellis felt herself betrayed, hunted, and her instincts warned her that she would be shown no mercy. She did not believe that her brother’s death had come about casually, or that he had been stabbed wantonly or in error. The shadow of Troy Castle loomed over her. She was fey that morning; the Forest whispered a warning. About noon Martin Valliant took his spade and went out to dig in the garden. He was shy of Mellis, shy of her despair, and the new manhood that had been born in him chafed and raged at the vows that held it. The blood of old Roger Valliant was alive in him; he was more the son of his father than he knew. The garden hedge shut Martin in upon himself, and he could see nothing of the moor, so that one of Noble Vance’s archers was able to come scouting right to the foot of the great cross and creep away again unnoticed. The fellow went back to a heathy hollow where the Forest Warden waited, sitting on his black horse in the sun. “The woman is there, lording. I saw her in the doorway of the rest-house.” “And the monk?” “I heard the sound of a spade in the garden.”