His eyes pleaded with her like the eyes of a dog. “Give me a hand, Denise; I will try if I can stand.” “No; why, you will but open your wounds again.” “My thoughts are more to me than my wounds, Denise.” He struggled up suddenly before she could hinder him, only to turn faint and dizzy, for the blood fell from his brain. He swayed, and went grey as Denise’s gown. “Are you mad, lord; you will die of your wilfulness!” She put her arm about his shoulders, and her hair brushed against his cheek. “Denise, if I could so much as crawl——” His wistfulness woke a rush of tenderness in her. “No, no, rest here.” “Rest! I cannot rest, cannot you understand?” Denise’s arm was still about his shoulders. They looked into each other’s eyes, one long look full of mystery, of sadness, and unrest. “My heart understands you,” she said very softly. “Yet, is there shame in my wishing you to live.” She let him lie back on the bed, and taking the wine, she made him drink, and her hand brushed the hair from off his forehead. “You must sleep,” she said. “No harm can come while I am watching.” And Aymery’s eyes were full of a silent awe. CHAPTER VIII There was a sound of horns in the woodlands as the morning of the second day drew towards noon, and Denise, who had gone down towards Goldspur to discover whether Grimbald or any of the villagers had returned, heard the distant winding of the horns, and stood still to listen. The day was sunny, with a light breeze blowing, and Denise could see no live thing stirring in the whole valley where the ashes of Goldspur still threw out silver smoke. Yet those distant horns beyond the hills seemed to carry a cry of strangeness and unrest. Denise would have given much to know all that was passing yonder, but no man came that way and she dared not leave the beech wood, and the wounded man in the cell. The very silence and emptiness of the landscape filled her with vague dread. No one had dared to return to the fields or the burnt village. The hawk was still hovering, and the small birds kept their cover. Aymery was asleep when Denise returned to the cell, but he woke at her coming, and looked up at her for news. “I have seen nothing but the smoke from Goldspur,” she said calmly enough. “Grimbald and the people still keep to the woods. They may be with us any hour.” Aymery lay quiet for a while as though sunk in thought. His consciousness reflected clearly the meaning of the past and the promise of the future. “So they have burnt Goldspur,” he said, as though speaking the words of a prayer. Denise had set the door wide, and drawn a stool into the sunlight. “Surely there is some law left in the land?” “We have surfeited ourselves with law,” he said bitterly; “only to learn that the law bows itself to the man with the sword and the title.” Denise leant back against the rough oak door-post. “You will build the house again?” she asked. He did not answer her for a moment.