Will Underwood, meanwhile, was running down the moor, the red-faced squire and the other sporting recusants behind him. There was no doubt now that Windyhough was in urgent peril. They could see the flaming doorway, could smell the scudding reek of smoke that came up-wind. “You’re up to the neck in love,” protested the squire, trying to keep pace with Will. “There’s naught else gives such wind to a man’s feet.” A sharp noise of musketry answered him from below, and Will ran ever a little faster. The squire’s gibe did not trouble him. The whole past life of him--the squalor of his youth, the sterile abnegation of the Sabbaths spent at Rigstones Chapel, the gradual change to ease and popularity among big-hearted gentry--passed by him like a fast-moving company of ghosts. And then another phantom stole, with faltering steps and shrouded head, across this vision he was borrowing from another world. He saw his cowardice, lean, shrivelled, stooping--the cowardice that had been born of ease and frank self-seeking. He had pledged faith that he would follow the Stuart when need asked; and he had broken troth, because he yearned to keep his house and lands, because he had planned to give a ball at Christmas that should set all Lancashire talking of its pomp. God was very kind to-night to Wild Will. The run was short and swift to Windyhough, as time is reckoned; but during the scamper over broken ground he found that leisure of the soul which is cradled in eternity. He won free of his past. He knew only that the squire had spoken a true word in jest. He was deep in love. All the ache and trouble of his need for Nance were wiped clean away. She was in danger, and he was running to her aid; and he understood, with a clean and happy sense of well-being, the way of his Catholic friends when they loved a woman. Until now it had been a riddle to him, the quality of this regard. He had seen them love as full-blooded men do--with storm and jealousy and passionate unrest, but always with a subtle reserve, a princely deference, shining dimly through it all. And to-night, his vision singularly clear, he knew that their faith was more than lip speech, knew that the Madonna had come once, and once for all, to show the path of chivalry. If Rupert had found happiness during this siege that had tested his manhood, so, too, had Will Underwood. With a single purpose, with desire only to serve Nance, asking no thanks or recompense, he raced over the last strip of broken ground and through the courtyard gate. “Be gad! they’ve been busy here!” growled the red-faced squire, seeing the bodies lying black against the snow and hearing the wounded crying in their anguish. But Will did not see the littered yard, the white, keen moonlight that spared no ugly detail. His eyes were fixed on the burning threshold--Nance was behind it, and she needed him.