Nance waited for his return. She had had him at call, until peril came and the attack in front. She was sure that he would come back, anxious as of old lest the world should use her ill. But he did not come; and she felt oddly desolate, because he was so resolute and far away from her. Then she, too, turned to the moonlit window and to soldiery. And the night crept on to dawn. From the fowl-yard at the rear of the house a cock began to crow half-heartedly. Nance, from her window, and the master of the house from his, looked out on a grey whirl of snow, reddened by the fingers of a frosty dawn. And nothing happened, as the way had been these days at Windyhough. CHAPTER XVI THE NEED OF SLEEP GOLDSTEIN, when he awoke the next morning to find himself laid on the stable straw with a dull ache in his left thigh, remembered the business that had brought him here, and tried to rise. He found himself sick and useless, and, getting to his feet by sheer hardihood, fell back again with a black mist about his eyes. Little by little he began to accept the situation as it stood, and he waited till his head was fairly clear again. He did not propose, so long as he had breath, to abandon his project of securing the blood-money that would secure him a life of ease in the Fatherland; and his troopers, when he gave his commands for the day with brisk precision, liked him better, seeing his pluck, than they had done since the beginning of this ill-starred errand. He reminded them, moreover, of their slain, lying here and there about the courtyard; and revenge is a fire that kindles men’s courage and hard obstinacy. A little while later, as Rupert peered through the dawn-red snow of the courtyard, he heard a gruff voice from below. It was the sergeant’s who was Goldstein’s deputy. “I want to come within gunshot of your window,” he said. “Every man to his taste,” laughed Rupert, glad of any respite from his vigil. “If you need lead, I can entertain you.” “Under truce.” “There can be no truce. I hold my house for the King, and mean to keep it.” “But listen. Give us the Pretender--we know as well as you do that he’s hiding here--and the rest of you can pass out in safety.” “The Prince is here you think? Why, then, we guard him, sir--what else is possible?” “You’ll not give five minutes’ truce? Captain Goldstein is wounded----” “I’m devilish glad to hear it,” said Rupert, with the gaiety that would not be denied. “He sends me to talk over this little matter of the siege.” “Then step out into the open--under truce--and let me see your face.” Some quality of honour in Rupert’s voice reached the sergeant. As he put it to himself, he knew the man for a fool who kept his word. The snow had all but ceased for a while, and in the keen dawnlight Goldstein’s man looked up and saw Rupert’s grave, clean-cut face at the window overhead. “Your garrison is weak. We know it,” said the sergeant. “You lie. Our garrison is strong,” Rupert answered bluntly.