It was growing toward dusk and he did not linger. He gained the courtyard by a side passage, and sent a varlet to summon Ralph with his horse. Whilst he waited he noticed Mocenigo descend the steps from the main entrance to the Keep and a bustle amongst the stranger's swarthy attendants. But his mind gave the matter no second thought, and he thrust his foot in the grey stallion's stirrup and swung into saddle without a word. They had ridden over the drawbridge and placed some distance betwixt themselves and Blancherive, when Ralph urged his horse alongside his master's. "Messer Hugh," he said eagerly. "Did you learn aught of these queer people behind us? They do say they come from Constantinople and the lands of Outremer." "They are from Sir Cedric," returned Hugh briefly. "Did they have word for Lady Edith?" "She sets out with them to-morrow." Hugh strove to speak as if it mattered nothing to him, but the effort pained. "Ah, Messer Hugh, this is great dolour for us," cried Ralph. "We shall have no more fine rides in Crowden Wood. Who would have thought this morning she would be----" Hugh cursed impatiently. "Ralph," he said, "'tis a matter I like not to think over any more. I would be alone for a space. Do you drop back and follow at a distance." "Ay, Messer Hugh." Ralph touched his cap and reined in his mount, an ache in his honest heart at the thought that his idol did not want him. Hugh rode on slowly, the reins loose on the stallion's neck, his head drooped in meditation. He tried not to think of the events of the afternoon. He tried to fasten his mind upon the accounts he must go over that evening with old Robin Fletcher, Ralph's father and the bailiff of the Chesby lands. He tried, when he was convinced that accounts held no interest for him, to recall the verses of some brave chanson and hum them to himself. He tried to think of the new harness he meant to order in London town against his own journey over-seas. He tried a dozen ways of diverting his mind, all equally without success. The sky darkened in the west and the shadows lengthened. The trees that lined the narrow track cast a weaving shuttle of shade, as the wind brushed their tops. But Hugh was heedless of all about him. The stallion knew the homeward path and was safe to follow it. Hugh was enwrapped in gloomy consideration of his own affairs. He never saw the slinking figure that crept among the trees, gained the roadside copse and stole slowly nearer as the light waned.