Denise let the boy’s hands fall; Aymery saw her bow her head, and heard her whisper words that he could not catch. Then Waleran came forward, swinging his arms as though to keep off Grimbald who towered beside him like a great ship. Waleran stopped at the foot of the litter, and stood staring at the shield that covered the dead boy’s face. Some impulse drove him to his knees, and he began to feel for the arrow, breathing heavily through set teeth. Denise’s nearness seemed to come between him and the savage tenderness of a dog for its dead whelp. Her humility and her compassion were not tuned to the cry of nature. “Get up,” he said. “This is my affair.” He leant forward, and pushed her back with a rough thrust of the open hand. Aymery caught Denise, and drew her aside. “Forgive——” His arms lingered about her like the arms of a lover. “Lord, I understand.” “That arrow has stricken two hearts.” Her eyes looked into Aymery’s as he let her go. “God have pity,” she said. Waleran had broken off the head of the arrow. He held it up in the moonlight, and his hood fell back from his face. The three who watched him saw his face contorted with laughter, though no sound came from the open mouth. He ran the arrow’s head through his cloak, as a woman pins her tunic with a splinter of bone. “Here is a keepsake,” he said. “Lord, but I shall cherish it! They have lit a candle for the boy, yonder. Some day I shall hang a bell on a rope, and ring him a passing.” He scrambled up, swaggering, and shaking his shoulders. It was his way of carrying the burden that the night had laid on him. He shouted to the men, roughly, and they came out from the shadows of the trees. When they had lifted the litter, Waleran jerked himself on to it, and putting the shield aside, sat fingering his boy’s face. “A puff of wind, and the candle is out,” he said. The litter swayed under his weight. “Spill me, you fools, and I shall have something to say to you. Off with you. To-morrow we must put this poor pigeon under the grass.” The men moved away, and Grimbald would have followed them, but Waleran ordered him back. “Have I nothing better to do than to cut my own throat!” he said. “Shifts and cassocks are no good for me. The puppy is mine, by God! Let no one meddle between him and me.” Grimbald followed them no farther, and heard the swish of their feet die away through the dead leaves into the darkness.