Thus the week of waiting passed merrily and rapidly away, and the day of the departure of Courtoise and the squires for Croitôt speedily arrived. With them also went a picked half-dozen men-at-arms, who were bursting with pride at this honor done their brilliant steel and smooth-flanked horses. After their going, when everything in the Castle was in readiness for the reception, a little wave of reaction set in among those left at home. Eleanore retired to commune with her own happy mind. David sought solitude in which to arrange a programme of welcome. And Alixe, seized with a sudden mood of misery, fled away to a certain cave in the base of the Castle cliff, and here wept and raged by herself, for some undefined reason, till her tears cleared the mists from her soul, and she was herself again. Still, as she returned to the Castle, she knew that there remained a bitterness in her heart. Eleanore, who had long ago come to mean mother to her, had, in the last month or two, for the first time given her almost a mother-love, that had fed Alixe’s hungry heart as the body of the Lord had never fed her soul. And now this love was to be taken away again. A real daughter was coming into the household, a daughter by the marriage of the Seigneur; and this, Alixe knew, must be a closer tie than any of time or custom. She must go back to her old place, the place she had held in the days of Laure; but she could never hope to find in the stranger the beautiful friendship that had existed between her and her foster-sister. That evening was a quiet one in the Castle. Monseigneur of St. Nazaire had arrived in the afternoon; but he seemed wearier than his wont, and, out of consideration for him, Eleanore ordered the general retirement at an early hour.