Half an hour later the knight and his squire were in the courtyard, where their horses stood ready for the mount. The little company of the Castle gathered close about their master, watching him as they might have watched some mythical god. Indeed, he was a brave sight, as he stood there in the early sunshine, flashing with armor, a gray plume floating from his helmet, and one of Lenore’s small gloves fastened over his visor as a gage. Lenore beheld this with infinite, gentle pride, as she stood fixing his great lance in its socket. Presently two of the squires helped him to mount to the saddle; and when he was seated, he lifted Lenore up to him to give her good-bye. A few tears ran from her eyes, and rolled silently down his breastplate, on which they gleamed like clustered diamonds. But Lenore wiped them away with her hair, that they might not tarnish the metal of his trappings; and by that act, perhaps, Gerault lost a blessing. The last kiss that he gave her was a long one, and his last words almost tender. Then, putting her to the ground again, he saluted his mother, though her coldness struck him to the heart; and, after a final farewell to the assembled company, he turned and gave the sign of departure to Courtoise. Spur struck flank. At the same instant, the two horses darted forward to the drawbridge, across which they had presently clattered. Alixe, who had been a silent spectator of the scene of departure, was standing near Lenore; and now she leaned over and would have whispered in the young wife’s ear; but Lenore could not have heard her had she spoken. The child stood like a statue, blind to everything save to the blaze of passing armor, deaf to all but the echo of flying hoofs. Here she stood, in the centre of the courtyard, alone with her strange little life, watching the swift-running steed carry from her all her power of joy. With straining eyes she saw the two figures disappear down the long, winding hill; and when they had gone, and only a lazily rising dust-cloud remained to mark their path, she stayed there still. But presently Eleanore came to her side and took her cold hand in a hot pressure. And then, as the two bereft women looked into each other’s eyes, the frozen grief melted at last, and the flood burst upon them in all its overwhelming fury. [Illustration] _CHAPTER NINE_ THE STORM [Illustration]