“Because of—of the pride in me, because of all that has happened.” “Fool, kiss her! Thirty!” murmured Marpasse. Aymery still held Denise’s hands. Yet he was looking beyond her towards the town hazy with the golden mist of the morning. “It was I who brought it on you,” he said. He felt Denise shudder, and the impulse mastered him, he drew her to him, and kissed her upon the mouth. She did not resist, but her mouth was cold, and her eyes troubled. Gaillard’s shadow seemed to come between them. “Forty,” called Marpasse, “and a buxom age for a woman.” Aymery let go of Denise’s hands. He stood with bowed head, looking into her face. “Whatever God wills to-day,” he said, “remember the words that I have spoken.” “Fifty,” trilled Marpasse. “I will see to it, lording. Up on your horse, my gallant. They are all in a drunken sleep yonder at Lewes, and there is not a man of them on the watch.” She turned, and glanced sharply from Aymery to Denise. And the wet, passionate trouble in Denise’s eyes betrayed to Marpasse how things were tending. It was best to leave the tenderness to ripen of itself that day, for none but a woman understands a woman’s heart. Aymery was in the saddle. His man’s face had grown tense and keen, the face of the strenuous fighter who puts softer things aside. And Marpasse loved him for that hawk’s look of his, and the way he spread his pinions to the wind. “Simon is marching through the Newick woods,” he said; “if he can but come in time, he can seize and take the ground that pleases him.” He looked down at Denise, and Marpasse understood the look. “Ride, lording,” she said, “leave us to follow.” Aymery drew his sword, and kissed the blade. “Denise!” and wheeling his horse he went away at a gallop. De Montfort had the news soon after dawn that May morning as his host came streaming through the woods of Newick. Sending forward a company of knights and men-at-arms under young De Clare and William de Monchesny, Simon followed on with the main body, climbing the narrow coombe that led to the chalk ridge running westwards from Lewes town. The vanguard had found Marpasse’s solitary sentinel still asleep on the hillside, and they woke him roughly, and laughed at his gaping and astonished face. Meanwhile the main host gained the ridge, and pouring on steadily in the morning sunshine, did not halt their banners till they could see the bell tower of the Priory of St. Pancras. Simon, who had been carried in a litter through the Newick woods because of a wrenched tendon in the leg, mounted his horse, and rode out in front of the ranks. Standing in the stirrups he spoke a few brave words to hearten his men, pointed to the white cross he wore, and commended himself and the host to God. “God, and the Cross,” the shout came back to him. Some knelt, others prostrated themselves, with arms outspread, and kissed the earth. The King would have to fight an army of zealots that morning.