“Be of cheer!” said Audiart. “The black may lighten!” She laughed at her step-dame, and at Guida’s melancholy look. “In these earthy ways loss has its boundary stone no less than gain! Who knows but that to-day we turn?—Come close, Guida and Maeut, for I have something to say to you three, and want no other—no, not a sparrow—to hear me!” She spoke on, in a low voice, with occasionally an aiding gesture, Maeut kindling quickly, the other two incredulous, objecting, resisting, then, at last, catching, too, at the straw.... That morning Montmaure did not push to the assault. Viewed from the walls, it seemed that the two counts made changes in the disposition of the besieging host. Here battalions were drawing closer, here spreading fan-wise. Invest as closely as Montmaure might, Roche-de-Frêne had gotten out now a man and now a man, with a cry for aid to the King of France, to Toulouse and others. One had returned with King Philip’s assurance that he would aid if he could, but harassed by revolts nearer Paris, could not. Other messengers had made no return.... To-day there seemed a redrawing of the investing lines, a lifting and pitching afresh of encampments. Roche-de-Frêne, beginning to know hunger, saw, too, long forage trains come laden to its enemy. Watching, Roche-de-Frêne thought justly that Montmaure might be meaning to rest for a time from assaults in which he lost heavily, heavily—to rest from assaults and lean upon starvation of his foe. Famine, famine was his ally—famine and Aquitaine! It was the last that made him able to serve himself with the first. Garin, going toward the castle from the town’s eastern gate, heard in the high street the trumpet and the cadenced notice that Stephen the Marshal, healed of his wound, again commanded for the princess. The people cried, “Long live the princess! Long live the marshal!” then, silent or in talk, turned to the many-headed business of the day. In front of Garin rose the great mass of the cathedral, wonderful against the November sky. As he came into the place before it, there met him Pierol, the trusted page of the princess. “Sir Garin de Castel-Noir, I was sent in search of you! The princess wishes to speak with you—No, not this hour! Two hours from now, within the White Tower.” He was gone. “Go you, also,” said Garin to the squire Rainier. “Or wait for me here by the door. I will spend in the church one hour of those two.”