Rupert glanced shyly at her. He was son and lover both, diffident, eager, chivalrous. “Suppose there’s no attack on the house, mother--suppose I were never proved? I have learned so much to-night--so much. Surely there’s something gained.” It was a moment of simple, intimate knowledge, each of the other. And the mother’s face was flower-like, dainty; the spoilt wife’s wrinkles were altogether gone. “It is my turn to ask why,” she said, with a coquetry that was rainy as an April breeze. “I’ve not deserved well of you, my dear--not deserved well at all, and have told you so; and you choose just this time--to honour me. Men are perplexing, Rupert. One never knows their moods.” Her toy spaniel began barking from somewhere at the far end of the house; and the old inconsequence returned from habit. “Oh, there’s poor Fido crying!” she said eagerly. “Go find him, Rupert. The poor little man is so sensitive--you know he’s almost human, and he is crying for me.” And Rupert went out on the old, foolish quest--willingly enough this time. He had seen beneath the foolish, pampered surface of his mother’s character, and was content to hold secure this newborn love for her, this knowledge that she needed him. He was needed--at long last. “You look gay, master,” said Simon Foster, meeting him down the corridor. “Well, it’s each man to his taste; but I shouldn’t have said, like, there was much to hearten a man these days.” “You’ve not sought in the right place,” laughed the master. And then Simon grinned, foolishly and pleasantly. For he remembered how he had helped Martha the dairymaid to milk the cows not long ago. “I’m not complaining,” he said, guardedly. CHAPTER XIII THE RIDING IN SIR JASPER, sure of his mare, had ridden hard toward Windyhough. He had promised, in good faith, that he would lead Captain Goldstein on the road, but he had not passed his word that he would ride at the pace of heavy cavalry. He heard the bullets singing, right and left and overhead, after Goldstein’s call to fire; but the lean, hill-bred mare was going swiftly under him, and it was only five miles home to Windyhough. There had been a sharp pain in his left shoulder, a stab as if a red-hot rapier had pierced him, in the midst of the crackling musket-din behind him; but that was forgotten. The mare galloped forward gamely. She was untouched, save for a bullet that had grazed her flank and quickened her temper to good purpose. Sir Jasper’s spirits rose, as the remembered landmarks swept past him on the wind. His mind, his vision, his grip on forward hope, were singularly clear and strong. This was his holiday, after the sickness of retreat.