“I am Nor—” and then he stopped. Always before he had answered that question with haughty pride. Why should he hesitate, he thought. Was it because he feared the loathing that name would inspire in the breast of this daughter of the aristocracy he despised? Did Norman of Torn fear to face the look of seem and repugnance that was sure to be mirrored in that lovely face? “I am from Normandy,” he went on quietly. “A gentleman of France.” “But your name?” she said peremptorily. “Are you ashamed of your name?” “You may call me Roger,” he answered. “Roger de Conde.” “Raise your visor, Roger de Conde,” she commanded. “I do not take pleasure in riding with a suit of armor; I would see that there is a man within.” Norman of Torn smiled as he did her bidding, and when he smiled thus, as he rarely did, he was good to look upon. “It is the first command I have obeyed since I turned sixteen, Bertrade de Montfort,” he said. The girl was about nineteen, full of the vigor and gaiety of youth and health; and so the two rode on their journey talking and laughing as they might have been friends of long standing. She told him of the reason for the attack upon her earlier in the day, attributing it to an attempt on the part of a certain baron, Peter of Colfax, to abduct her, his suit for her hand having been peremptorily and roughly denied by her father. Simon de Montfort was no man to mince words, and it is doubtless that the old reprobate who sued for his daughter’s hand heard some unsavory truths from the man who had twice scandalized England’s nobility by his rude and discourteous, though true and candid, speeches to the King. “This Peter of Colfax shall be looked to,” growled Norman of Torn. “And, as you have refused his heart and hand, his head shall be yours for the asking. You have but to command, Bertrade de Montfort.” “Very well,” she laughed, thinking it but the idle boasting so much indulged in in those days. “You may bring me his head upon a golden dish, Roger de Conde.” “And what reward does the knight earn who brings to the feet of his princess the head of her enemy?” he asked lightly. “What boon would the knight ask?” “That whatsoever a bad report you hear of your knight, of whatsoever calumnies may be heaped upon him, you shall yet ever be his friend, and believe in his honor and his loyalty.” The girl laughed gaily as she answered, though something seemed to tell her that this was more than play. “It shall be as you say, Sir Knight,” she replied. “And the boon once granted shall be always kept.” Quick to reach decisions and as quick to act, Norman of Torn decided that he liked this girl and that he wished her friendship more than any other thing he knew of. And wishing it, he determined to win it by any means that accorded with his standard of honor; an honor which in many respects was higher than that of the nobles of his time.