The Breton had been completely taken by surprise. He had imposed upon the earl with a story which the latter, in the excitement attendant upon his ambitious enterprise, had neglected to verify, and it had never entered his head that the countess would trouble herself about the matter. He supposed that the earl himself had at least spoken to her of Sir Aimand as a culprit, and that she was entirely ignorant of his presence as a prisoner in the castle; as she had been, until the strange impulse which came to her to have a mass said for him, caused her to name him to the chaplain. Even in case of her finding the matter out and wishing to probe it, he had an ingenious story ready, wherewith to put her off the scent. But the suddenness with which she had taken matters into her own hands, and had visited the prisoner and heard _his_ version of the facts, quite overcame the somewhat clumsy wit of the Breton. His first impulse, as usual, had been to bluster, but the firmness with which the countess confronted him had fairly cowed him for the moment, as he knew that he would have to justify himself, and to eat a good many of his words before Sir Hoël and the Norman knights of the garrison, to whom he had accounted for De Sourdeval's absence by representing that he had been sent on an embassy by the earl. Many were the curses that he inwardly showered on the devoted head of Father Pierre, to whom he attributed the discovery of his schemes, and he also reviled himself for having forgotten him as a possible channel of communication between the prisoner and the countess. His wits had not been the brighter for the hour at which Emma had happened on her inopportune discovery, for he had been indulging freely in his favourite spiced hippocras during the evening, and therefore it seemed best to his clumsy cunning to offer no further open opposition to the countess, and to carry out her orders himself, thus gaining time to concoct plausible excuses before Sir Hoël should know of the affair. Emma also kept her own counsel, and did not say a word even to Eadgyth, when the Saxon maiden, who slept in her chamber, came to help her to unrobe. When Eadgyth ventured a question as to what had detained her to such a late hour, the countess smiled and kissed her. 'Thou shalt know all in good time, dear donzelle,' she answered. 'Ask me not to-night.' CHAPTER XX. À OUTRANCE. The morning came, and with it cares more important than the fate of the poor Knight of Sourdeval. Before the dew was off the meadows, the shrill trumpets of the besiegers were heard at the barbican, demanding a parley, and calling for admittance in the name of the king.