“Me!” she answered, with a quick smile. “Nay, of what use am I? Your nursing days are over. What did you tell me your father said to you before he rode--about Sir Christopher? Hush! there’s no time to talk; you must away to Cranwell Towers.” “Why?” asked Cicely. “He cannot bring my father back to life, and it would be thought strange indeed that at such a time I should visit a man in his own house. Send and tell him the tidings. I bide here to bury my father, and,” she added proudly, “to avenge him.” “If so, sweet, you bide here to be buried yourself in yonder Nunnery. Hark, I have not told you all my news. The Abbot Maldon claims the Blossholme lands under some trick of law. It was as to them that your father quarrelled with him the other night; and with the land goes your wardship, as once mine went under this monk’s charter. Before sunset the Abbot rides here with his men-at-arms to take them, and to set you for safe-keeping in the Nunnery, where you will find a husband called Holy Church.” “Name of God! is it so?” said Cicely, springing up; “and the most of the men are away! I cannot hold the Hall against that foreign Abbot and his hirelings, and an orphaned heiress is but a chattel to be sold. Oh! now I understand what my father meant. Order horses. I’ll off to Christopher. Yet, stay, Nurse. What will he do with me? It may seem shameless, and will vex him.” “I think he will marry you. I think to-night you will be a wife. If not, I’ll know the reason why,” she added viciously. “A wife! To-night!” exclaimed the girl, turning crimson to her hair. “And my father but just dead! How can it be?” “We’ll talk of that with Harflete. Mayhap, like you, he’ll wish to wait and ask the banns, or to lay the case before a London lawyer. Meanwhile, I have ordered horses and sent a message to the Abbot to say you come to learn the meaning of these rumours, which will keep him still till nightfall; and another to Cranwell Towers, that we may find food and lodging there. Quick, now, and get your cloak and hood. I have the jewels in their case, for Maldon seeks them more even than your lands, and with them all the money I can find. Also I have bid the sewing-girl make a pack of some garments. Come now, come, for that Abbot is hungry and will be stirring. There is no time for talk.” Three hours later in the red glow of the sunset Christopher Harflete, watching at his door, saw two women riding towards him across the snow, and knew them while they were yet far off. “It is true, then,” he said to Father Roger Necton, the old clergyman of Cranwell, whom he had summoned from the vicarage. “I thought that fool of a messenger must be drunk. What can have chanced, Father?” “Death, I think, my son, for sure naught else would bring the Lady Cicely here unaccompanied save by a waiting-woman. The question is--what will happen now?” and he glanced sideways at him.