Nance went apart and put weak, foolish hands about her eyes. There could be no resurrection, she fancied, from this death in life that was meant by the retreat from Derby. But Rupert held his head up and looked at Oliphant with steady eyes. The blow was sudden and bewildering; this retreat cut deep into his faith, his certainty that the Prince could not fail to carry London; and his shoulders broadened to the burden, so that he carried it well--almost lightly, as it seemed to Nance. “My father--he is safe, sir?” he asked quietly. “Yes, safe; but his temper is like a watch-dog’s on the chain----” “He’ll bite deeper when the chance comes.” Rupert was smiling gravely through his eagerness. “Mr. Oliphant, I--I dare not ask you what--what my father--and the Prince--and the Highlanders--are feeling.” Oliphant set a rough hand on his arm. “Feeling? The whole route north is one long burial. I’ve seen battle, I’ve heard the wounded crying when the night-wind crept into their wounds, but I never met anguish as I met it on the road from Derby. My lad, I cannot speak of it--and the Prince among them all, with a jest on his lips to hearten them, and his face as if he danced a minuet--all but the eyes, the saddened eyes--the eyes, I think, of martyred Charles, when he stepped to the scaffold on a bygone January morning and bade us all _remember_.” Oliphant halted a moment. A fury, resolute and quiet, was on him. “By God, sir, some few of us are not likely to forget!” And suddenly Nance sobbed aloud, though she had never learned the woman’s trick of easy tears. And about Oliphant’s face, too, a softness played. It was a moment for these three such as comes seldom to any of us--a moment packed so full with grief and tragedy that they must needs slip off the masks worn at usual times. They three were of the old Faith, the old, unquestioning loyalty. They had no intrigues, of policy or caution, to hide from one another. One of the three had been with the army of retreat, had felt the throb and pity that put a finer edge to the sword he carried; and two of them waited here at Windyhough, sending long thoughts out to help the wayfarers. And now there was an end, it seemed; and in the chilly gloaming their hearts met, caught fire, were friendly in a common grief.