As she opened the door and crossed the landing, she heard a heavy footfall on the stair below, then Simon Foster’s laboured breathing. Some instinct of disaster chilled her. In this house of emptiness, with the wind roaming like an unquiet ghost down every corridor, she listened to the uncanny, stealthy upcoming. Once, years ago, she had heard men bringing home her brother, killed in the hunting-field; and it seemed to her that she was listening to the same sounds again, was feeling the same vague, unreasoning dread. Then she remembered that Rupert had been missing since dawn, and she was moved by some grief that struck deeper than she understood. They turned the corner of the stair at last, and Nance saw Rupert coming up--Rupert, his face grey and tired as he leaned on Simon’s arm; Rupert, who looked older, manlier, more like Sir Jasper. And then, for no reason she could have given, she lost half her grief. At least he was not dead; and there was a look about him which stronger men of her acquaintance had worn when they were in the thick of trouble. There was a long, mullioned window lighting the stairway head. And Rupert, looking up, saw Nance standing there--close to him, yet far away as some lady of dreams might stand. The keen winter’s sun, getting out from sleet-clouds, made a St. Luke’s summer round about her; and Nance, who was just comely, good to see, at other times, borrowed a strange beauty from the hour and place, and from the human pity that was troubling her. Rupert halted on the landing, and looked at her as if she were food and drink to him. Then he flushed, and turned his head. “You?” he said quietly. “I’d rather have met any one but you just now.” “And why, my dear?” asked Nance, with simple tenderness. “Why? Because I’m maimed, and sick at heart,” he said savagely. “How did it come about?” she interrupted, with the same impulsive tenderness. “I tried to join the Rising, and was thrown. So much was to be expected, Nance?” She had been thinking hard things of stay-at-homes and weaklings; and, as she looked at Rupert now, she was touched by keen reproach. He was ashamed, tired out, in pain of soul and body; yet he was smiling, was making a jest of his indifferent horsemanship. Nance recalled once more that evening on the moors, when Rupert had bidden Will Underwood ride with her to Windyhough, while he stayed with his brother. In his voice, in the set of his whole face, there had been a stubborn strength that had astonished her; and here again, on the sunlit, draughty stairhead, he was showing her a glimpse of his true self. “I wish you better luck,” she said simply--“oh, so much better luck.” He saw that there were tears in her eyes, and felt his weakness coming on him like a cloud, and fought it for a moment longer. “It will come, Nance,” he said--cheerily, though he felt himself a liar. “Go down to mother. She--she needs help more than I. Now, Simon, you’ve got your breath again.”