Ralph de Guader caught his wife's outstretched arms in his own, and looked down into the fair face he had feared never to see again; and then--not the gentle lady, but the mailed warrior swooned. Worn out with the terrible fatigues he had undergone, while yet unhealed of his wounds, the earl reeled in his saddle, and would have fallen, if the tender arms of his wife had not caught him in their clasp. His head sank on Emma's shoulder. The fiery Oliver turned his intelligent head and caressed her arm softly with his velvet nose, but stood without moving a limb, gazing at her with his full, bright eyes. He seemed to understand. Had he moved, the countess would have fared ill. Emma was quickly eased of her beloved burden by the retainers around, and the insensible earl was borne within the sheltering walls of the keep, and laid upon his own broidered, carved oak bed, in his own spacious and luxurious room. Ah! how Emma wept and prayed and joyed over him, and laughed lowly for delight that in very truth she had her warrior once more. How she burnt sweet essences, and bathed his lips with perfumed waters, and shuddered at the print of Odo's mace that still marked his brow with a black and sullen scar. Ralph, opening his steel-grey eyes upon that eager face, lost all fear lest his gauntness and humiliation and defeat should lessen wifely love. 'Sweetheart!' he sighed. 'Sweetheart! God be praised that I see thee again!' The memory of his desolation on the battlefield came over him with resistless force. His breast heaved with a mighty sob as he took his wife's hands again in his own and pressed them to his lips. 'They brought me news of thy death, Ralph. But I knew better,' whispered Emma, as she bent over him, her quick tears falling on his face. 'I knew better! Thou couldst not have died but I had known it. My heart had been rent in twain.' Then Ralph told her the history of his struggle, and of the long dreadful hours when he lay 'twixt life and death upon the field; and how Grillonne had schemed and saved him; and of the refuge in the Fens. A murmured story, told in a voice faint and weak with suffering, and received with many an ejaculation of sympathy and love. 'I had planned to steal away privily by Wells on the sea, and there take ship for Denmark,' De Guader said. 'But, sweetheart, the thought of thee was to me as the thought of water to the pilgrim in the desert. Thee I must see, or perish for longing. And I see thee.' He drew her to him and feasted his eyes on her face. 'And for that thou didst confront danger and difficulty and the pain of thy sore wounds?' said Emma proudly.