So they stood there, in the cold and ruddy gloaming, and were helpless to find speech together. All that lay deep in Nance, secure beneath each day’s indignities, went out to this heir of Windyhough. His view of life was hers; his roots were in the soil, tilled lovingly by far-back fathers, that breeds the strong plants of chivalry. And yet--and yet he was so fitful in his moods, so apart from the needs of every day, so galling to the women who looked, as a matter of course, for their men to go out into the open. And then, following some odd byway of memory, she recalled how grim and steady and reliant he had been that winter’s day--it seemed long since--when he had sent Will Underwood and herself down the moor while he prepared to fight out the quarrel with his younger brother. “Rupert,” she said, seeking for some way of praising him, “you shot well to-day.” “Yes,” he growled. “I outshot a woman, Nance--and a man who was crippled in every joint he owned. I take no praise for that. As men count shooting, I’m where I always stood--your patient fool, Nance.” So they stood helpless there, one aching with the love he had--each day of this close companionship making Nance more lovable and more far off--the other stifled by her pity for this heir of Windyhough, who needed so little to touch his manhood into living flame. And as they stood a horseman came clattering up. There was mud on his horse, so that none could have told whether it were roan or black or chestnut. There was mud on his clothes, and on his hands, and on his lean, strained face. As he reined up sharply, his gift of knowing faces and their records did not fail him. “You’re Sir Jasper’s son?” he said. “I’m glad, sir, to meet you out of doors, for it will save me time.” Rupert was aware of some sense of betterment. Dimly, and far off as yet, he saw the answer to his faith take shape and substance. “I remember you, sir,” he answered gravely. “You are Mr. Oliphant of Muirhouse, and once you--you praised my shortcomings. You--you helped me, sir, that night you came to Windyhough. You do not guess the debt I owe you.” Oliphant, sick with hard riding, more sick with the disastrous news that he was bringing to the loyal north, halted for remembrance of that night when he had come to Sir Jasper’s and found Lady Royd and a slim, nerve-ridden lad who was vastly like his own dead self, buried long ago under the hills of fine endeavour. “By your leave, sir,” he said, gently as if the pipes were sobbing for dead hopes, “I think you’ve pluck enough to hear bad news and take it like a soldier. All’s lost--at Derby--and the Prince’s men are coming north again.”