Denise went on her knees beside the litter, her two hands putting back the masses of her hair. Aymery lifted the shield from the lad’s face. The sleeve of his hauberk brushed against Denise’s cloak. She glanced round at him, and their eyes smiled faintly at one another. “We brought the boy to you. The arrow drove right through him. You can feel the point under his tunic.” Denise laid a hand over the lad’s heart. There was not a flicker of movement there, but she could feel the arrow’s head standing out a hand’s breadth beyond the ribs. The lad must have died very quickly. “He is dead,” she said to the man at her side. Aymery was staring at the boy’s face. He turned, and glanced meaningly at the figure that stood apart in silent isolation. “It is Waleran,” he said in a whisper, “he would not believe the worst.” Denise gave a little shudder of pity. Aymery turned, and met her eyes. “Pray for the boy, Denise. What is death, but a miracle! And an hour ago——” She spread her hands helplessly. “Lord, death is beyond me; I am not blessed with so much power. Someone must tell him.” “The pity of it!” And she echoed him. “The pity of it!” A compassionate humility made her bow her head over the rough litter, for there was no place for the smaller remembrance of self in the conscious awe of her own helplessness. Denise had healed sick people, but she who could play the lady of healing, knew herself human in the presence of death. “Tell him,” she said, “it is almost shame to me that you should have brought the boy here.” Aymery covered the lad’s face again with the shield. “Pray for Waleran,” he said. “For the living rather than the dead.” Aymery rose and joined Grimbald the priest, who was standing by the gate. Denise still knelt beside the litter, holding the dead boy’s hands. And if compassion could have given him life, compassion for that silent man who stood aloof, life might have flowed miraculously from Denise’s body, and spread like fire into the limbs of the dead. Grimbald left Aymery, and crossed the grass to where Waleran stood, Waleran that sturdy man with the fierce red shock of hair. Waleran had been the first mesne lord in those parts to bristle his mane against Count Peter of Savoy. This hardihood had lost him his only child, and made a bonfire of his home, though he would not believe at first that the boy was dead. Aymery of Goldspur turned again to Denise. He could see that she was praying, and his eyes, that were frosty with the cold anger of a strong man helpless in the face of death, flashed suddenly as he saw the moonlight touching Denise’s hair. Grimbald had Waleran by the shoulders. They heard a short, sharp oath scatter the priest’s whisperings as a puff of wind scatters a handful of feathers. “Dead!” There was the sound of heavy breathing. “Let me alone! Am I a fool of a girl?” “Patience, brother.” “Patience be cursed! What is the use of an idiot saint if an arrow between the ribs is too much for her?”