“They are nothing.” “Lord, I know otherwise. You will bide there on that bed.” She spoke quietly enough, but Aymery looked up at her restlessly, watching the sunlight shining through her hair. “I cannot lie here, Denise.” “You are safe.” “Too safe, perhaps; it is not of my own safety——” He paused, but not before she had caught his meaning. The truth was difficult for Aymery to utter, and yet she honoured him for thinking of her honour. “None but our friends come this way,” she answered. He half rose in bed with the strong and generous passion that made his pale face shine on her out of the darkness of the cell. “Mother of God, child, am I so selfish, and so blind! Do I not remember what you are, to all of us in these parts. If these dogs found me here! I would rather crawl on my hands and knees than tempt that chance.” Her face flushed deeply, but not because of the mere words that he had spoken. A sudden impulse seized her, an impulse that came she knew not whither. Aymery had sunk back again, and the sight of this strong man’s weakness went to her heart. In the taking of a breath she was bending over him, and holding the wooden cross that hung at her girdle. Kissing it she held it before Aymery’s eyes. “Lord, let this be as a sign between us, for I have no fear.” He looked at the cross, then at Denise, and his eyes seemed to catch the glimmer of her hair. “Denise, but one day,” he said. “To-morrow——” “Leave God the morrow.” “Yet, who knows what even the morrow may bring.” Denise turned from him, and going out, closed the door. She stood leaning against it, looking above the trees into the blue of a spring sky. Infinitely strange, infinitely wonderful seemed this mysterious fire that had been kindled suddenly within her heart. Quench it she could not, though she strove to smother and hide it even from herself. As for Aymery, the cell seemed very dark to him, for lack of the radiance that had streamed from her hair. Denise went down through the beech wood towards Goldspur that morning, meaning to see whether Gaillard and his men had gone. The valley was full of sunlight, but over the village hung a thin dun-coloured mist, with pale smoke curling upwards into the blue. No live thing moved in the valley, and even her hope of the glimpse of a friend failed her. Still, her heart was glad that there were no riders there, and that the violence of the night seemed farther from her world. Gaillard had gone. He and his men had passed the night, drinking and warming themselves before the burning house, none too pleased with the evening’s handiwork. Soon after dawn a rider had come galloping in, beaconed through the darkness by the glare of the burning manor, and Gaillard, when he had spoken with the fellow, had ordered his men to horse, after they had buried two comrades who had fallen beneath Grimbald’s axe. They had ridden away towards the sea, since my Lord of Savoy had called Gaillard back to Pevensey.