The barrier was down at last and the wolves were free to fall upon their quarry. A score of men, all told, against a hundred; the outcome was hardly doubtful. Yet it was not Gavan of the Greenwood Keep who held up his hand in sign of parley, but the Doomsman, Quinton Edge. "The maiden Issa," he said, speaking with a smooth insolence that made Constans set his teeth. "Give her safely to my hand and your goods and your lives shall go free of further damage. A cheap bargain; but speak quickly, old man, these hounds of mine are not to be held in leash for long." The partisans on either side had fallen back, leaving the two leaders face to face. Sir Gavan plucked twice at his throat, where the veins stood out like cords, constricting the vocal passages so that he stuttered thickly as he spoke. "This--this gallows-scape!" he stammered. "This burner of peasants' hayricks, this pitiful plunderer of hen-roosts and cattle byres! If it were a man, now--to nail the insult to his lips----" "We lose time," interrupted the Doomsman. "I have named my price." "The price--ah, yes, the price. Tennant, Constans, you heard what he said. But where is my child? Let the girl stand forth; she is her father's daughter, and she shall answer for herself." "I will abide by it," said Quinton Edge, with cool confidence. The half-circle opened and Issa stood before them; a mere child she looked in her simple slip of white and with her fair hair all unbound. A vague terror seized upon Sir Gavan. What was this question that he was about to ask of his daughter? Could there be other than the one answer? How quietly she stood there and waited. Yes, and they were all waiting upon him; he must speak. "Issa!" It seemed to him that he had shouted aloud; then he realized that he had not spoken at all. "Issa!" he said, again, and she turned towards him. "This man; he is not known to you. How could it be?" "Yet it is the truth, my father," answered the girl, steadily. "It is just a month ago that chance set us face to face--one day when I rode alone in the green drive." "And thereafter?" "Once he came to the walled garden, adventuring the thousand chances of discovery. Yet how he managed to cross the stockade-line I know not, for I was frightened, and begged him to leave me. And this he did most courteously, only swearing that he would again return." "The third time?" "That was the day--the day of the first May-bloom--the Ochre brook and the Doomsmen----" The girl's voice faltered. "Yet never a word to me or to your mother?" "It was not my secret," she answered, bravely; and upon that Quinton Edge himself took up the word.