"You wished me to give him a lesson. He was going homeward. I had to ride last night, or let him escape. By my troth, I had only your pleasure in mind." "Oh, but the price paid was too great! I had to give up your society for hours. That is a loss I shall mourn to the end of my life. I hope, then, that you killed him. Nothing less will suffice for it." "I was out of fortune, as I always am. I had an accident, and was at his mercy. He gave me my life." "Now, indeed, you pierce my heart. You at his mercy! It is an intolerable shame! It will make me cry out, even when I sleep! I shall die of it. You! You! to be at his mercy—at the mercy of that Puritan braggart. Oh, I cannot endure it!" "You see that I endure it very complacently, Mata. The man behaved as a gentleman and a soldier. I have even taken a liking to him. I have also paid back his kindness; we are quits, and as soldiers, friends. It was an accident, and as Neville very piously said, ’Accidents are God’s part in an affair;’ and therefore we would not be found fighting against God. You know, Mata, that I have been very religiously brought up. And I can assure you no one’s honour suffered, mine least of all." But Matilda was hard to comfort. Her last interview with her lover was saddened and troubled by this disagreement; and though both were broken-hearted in the moments of farewell, Matilda, watching Rupert across the Place Royale, discovered in the listless impatience of his attitude and movements, that inward revolt against outward strife, which, if it had found a voice, would have ejaculated, "I am glad it is over." This, then, was the end of the visit from which she had expected so much; and one sad gray morning in November they reached London. Sir Thomas was like a man released from a spell, and he went about his house and garden in a mood so happy that it was like a psalm of gratitude to be with him. Lady Jevery was equally pleased, though less ready to show her pleasure; but to Matilda, life appeared without hope—a state of simple endurance, for she had no vital expectation that the morrow, or any other morrow, would bring her happiness. The apparently fateful interference of Neville in her affairs made her miserable. She thought him her evil genius, the bearer of bad news, the bringer of sorrow. She felt Rupert’s "accident" as part of the bad fate. She had been taught fencing, and Cymlin Swaffham had often declared her a match for any swordsman, so that she knew, as well as Rupert knew, no honour had been lost between him and Neville. But the "accident" touched her deeper than this: she regarded it as a proof that the stars were still against her good fortune, separating her from her lover, influencing Neville and his party for victory, and dooming the King and his party to defeat in all their relationships, private and national.