And as the cavalcade reached Ludgate, on the way westward, the gate presented a slight impediment and there was a brief halt in the procession, and as Oliver raised his eyes to that balcony where De Moreville’s daughter was under the wing of Dame Waledger, they encountered that marvellously fair face, with eyes like the violet and hair like the raven’s wing, which had haunted him in all his adventures, and, as he gallantly raised his cap, his heart for a moment leaped with the emotion of a young lover suddenly face to face with her he adores. But it was only for a moment. Quick as the lightning’s flash his memory recalled that terrible dream, the recollection of which he had in vain endeavoured to banish, and so powerful was the impression which it had left, that he almost involuntarily breathed a prayer to be delivered from temptation. As he did so the procession resumed its course towards Westminster, and Oliver rode on, musing silently, and all that day and all that night his thoughts were gloomy, and he was still in melancholy mood next morning when, having been roused at sunrise, he mounted to accompany William de Collingham to take possession of Chas-Chateil in King Henry’s name. And Beatrix de Moreville became more sad. Part of her sadness arose from the belief that Oliver Icingla had all but forgotten the fair kinswoman whose presence had cheered his heart in captivity as sunshine lights up the landscape in latest October, or only remembered to think of her with dislike as the daughter of a man by whom he had been deeply injured. But this was not all that preyed upon the mind of Beatrix de Moreville, and brought the tears to her eyes. She was aware that Constantine Fitzarnulph, known to her only as a person of strong will and violent ambition, had become madly enamoured of her; that he had vowed that the Norman maiden should be his bride. She was aware that he had secured the co-operation of the Waledgers, male and female, who, reflecting on De Moreville’s harshness in other days, and deeming him now ruined and powerless either to benefit or to injure, had neither scruples nor fears so far as the Norman baron was concerned; and she was aware, also, that Fitzarnulph had, in all the confidence of untold wealth and municipal influence, sworn by the blood of St. Thomas, citizen as he was, he should wed the proud demoiselle, even if it cost the country a revolution and ten thousand lives to fill up the social gap that separated them. Such being her position, and being endowed with all the sensitive delicacy of a flower reared in a forest, De Moreville’s daughter, finding herself abandoned by her sire, shut up in that great house in Ludgate, worried daily by Dame Waledger, pestered by Sir Anthony, and with no one of her own age, and rank, and sex to sympathise with her woes, brooded pensively as she recalled the past, with all its romance, and sighed heavily as she thought of the future, with all its hazards.