It was the song of a cavalier, written to his wife the night before he went to execution for the Stuart’s sake. And it had lived, this ballad, because to its core it rang true to the heart’s love of a man. And Nance was singing it as if she understood its depth and meaning. This was the man’s love, royal, simple, courageous, of which she had talked to Lady Royd not long ago, for which she had been laughed at by the older woman. Yet one man at least had found grace to carry such love with him unblemished to the scaffold. The resignation, the willing sacrifice for kingship’s sake summed up by “the lonely tryst to keep,” as if this were a little matter--the human note of loss and heartbreak when she reached the last love confession, strong, tender, final in its simplicity--Nance’s voice found breadth and compass for them all, as if she had stood by this cavalier long dead, feeling pulse by pulse with him. And so, in a sense, she had; for these royalists of Lancashire had faults and weaknesses in plenty, but they had been strong in this--from generation to generation they had reared their children to a gospel resolute and thorough as the words of this old ballad. Nance lingered on those last words as if they haunted her--“I give him all my wealth.” And Rupert, standing in the doorway, was aware that, even to his eyes, Nance had never shown herself so tender and complete. She leaned over the spinet, touching a key idly now and then; and her thoughts were of Will Underwood, who had courage of a sort, a fine, reckless horsemanship that was needed by the Rising; of Wild Will, whose whole, big, dashing make-believe of character was ruined by a mean calculation, a need to keep houseroom and good cheer safe about him. She remembered her trust in him, their meeting on the moor, the sick, helpless misery that followed. And then she thought of Rupert, standing scholarly and apart from life--no figure of a hero, but one whom she trusted, in some queer way, to die for the faith that was in him, if need asked. And then again she laughed, a little, mournful laugh of trouble and bewilderment. Life seemed so wayward and haphazard, such a waste of qualities that were hindered by weaknesses tragic in their littleness. If Rupert’s steady soul could be housed in Will Underwood’s fine, dominant body, the world would see a man after its own heart.