Alike secure felt the ladies in Hollymead House, safe as within Gloucester. How could it be otherwise, with Sir Richard having his headquarters there and Eustace Trevor under the same roof? The happy times seemed to have returned; and the sisters, after their long irksome residence in walled towns, more than ever enjoyed that country life, to which from earliest years they had been accustomed. And once again went they out hawking, with the same cast of peregrines and the same little merlin. For Van Dorn, living in a sequestered spot, and unaffected by the events of the war, had kept the falcons up to their training. Once more to the marsh at the base of Ruardean Hill, the party almost identical with that which had repaired thither two years before. And as before rang out the falconer's _hooha-ha-ha-ha_! and shrill whistle, as a heron rose up from the sedge; again a _white_ heron, the great egret! Singular coincidence, and strangely gratifying to the fair owner of the peregrines, for she especially wanted an egret. How she watched as it made for upper air, with the falcons doing their best to mount above it; watched with eager, anxious eyes, fearing it might get away. Not that she was cruel, only just then she so desired to have a _white_ heron; would give anything for one. She did not need to have a fear. Van Dorn had done his duty by the hawks, and, the chased bird had no chance of escaping. Soon its pursuers were seen above it, with spread trains and quivering sails; then one _stooped, raked_, and rose over again; while the other stooped to _bind_; both ere long becoming bound; when all three birds came fluttering back to earth. With triumphant "whoop?" the falconer pronounced it a kill; but this time, seemingly without being told, he plucked out the tail coverts, and handed them to his young mistress. Days before, however, Van Dorn had received injunctions to procure such if possible. There was a hat that wanted a plume. "To replace that you lost, dear Eustace," she said, passing them over to him. "'Tis so good of you to think of it, darling?" How different their mode of addressing one another from the time when they were last upon that spot! No painstaking coyness now; but heart knowing heart, troth plighted, and loves mutually reliant. "I shall take better care of this one," he added, adjusting the feathers into a _panache_. "Never man sadder than I when the other was taken from me. For I feared it would be the loss of what I far more valued." "Your life. Ah! so feared I when I heard you were wounded--" "No, not my life," he said, interrupting. "Something besides." "What besides?" "Your love, Vaga; at least your esteem." "Eustace! How could you think that?" "From having lost my own, along with my character as a soldier. To be taken as in a trap." "Never that, dearest! All knew there was treason. If you were taken so might a lion, with such numbers against you. And how you delivered yourself!"