Immediately outside the closed door stood David the dwarf, moving restlessly from one spot to another, biting his thick lips, and working his heavy black brows with great nervousness. Seeing Alixe, he seized upon her at once. “I know what it is: Laure hath gone away, hath she not?” Alixe simply nodded. “Yea, I know it,—with that scoundrelly trouvère!” Alixe quivered as if she had been touched upon the raw; but David paid no attention to her movement of pain. “Come,” he jerked out nervously; “come away from this room. Come below. I will tell thee what I saw in the fellow.” The two of them walked silently across the broad upper hall and down the great staircase into the lower room, which was always deserted at this hour. Here Alixe and the dwarf seated themselves on tabourets at one of the long tables, and David began to talk. It seemed that he had watched Flammecœur closely, and had seen a good deal of his attentions to Laure; knew how he rode with her to and from the priory, guessed Laure’s all too apparent feeling for him, and was aware that most of the hours in which the troubadour had supposedly hunted, hawked, or gone to St. Nazaire, had really been spent in the neighborhood of the priory, though how much he had seen of the nun, David could not know. Alixe listened to him without much comment, and agreed in her heart with all that he said. But she was at a loss to comprehend her own bitterness of spirit at thought of what Flammecœur had done. She loved Laure truly; yet these sensations of hers were not for Laure, but for herself alone; and this girl, so acute at reading the minds of others, failed entirely to read her own; for had she not soundly hated Flammecœur? _Had_ she hated him? It was a heavy hour that these two, dwarf and peasant born, spent waiting for their lady to give some sign. At length, however, there were footsteps on the stairs, and both of them rose, as Eleanore, followed, not accompanied, by the white-robed nun, descended. Madame was very erect, very brilliant-eyed, very white and stiff, but she had perfect control over herself. As she swept toward the great door, David could plainly see her state, and Alixe read well her heart; yet neither of them could but admire her splendid self-possession. Out of the Castle and into the courtyard she went, the three others following her, on her way to the keep. In the open doorway of the rough stone tower, she halted; and the dozen lolling henchmen within instantly started to their feet.