I had not sheathed my sword. Master Bertie caught my wrist, and, lifting the blade, looked at it. "So, so!" he said nodding. "Are you hurt?" "Not touched!" I answered. Before more was said he compelled his wife to go back into the porch. The wind blew keenly across the open ground, and we were all wet and shivering. When we had fastened up the horse we followed her. The door of the church was locked, it seemed, and the porch afforded the best shelter to be had. Its upper part was of open woodwork, and freely admitted the wind; but wide eaves projected over these openings, and over the door, so that at least it was dry within. By huddling together on the floor against the windward side we got some protection. I hastily told what had happened. "So Clarence is gone!" My lady's voice as she said the words trembled, but not in sorrow or pity as I judged. Rather in relief. Her dread and hatred of the man were strange and terrible, and so seemed to me then. Afterward, I learned that something had passed between them which made almost natural such feelings on her part, and made natural also a bitter resentment on his. But of that no more. "You are quite sure," she said--pressing me anxiously for confirmation--"that it was he!" "Yes. But I am not sure that he is dead," I explained. "You seem to bear a charmed life yourself," she said. "Hush!" cried her husband quickly. "Do not say that to the lad. It is unlucky. But do you think," he continued--the porch was in darkness, and we could scarcely make out one another's faces--"that there is any further chance of pursuit?" "Not by that party to-night," I said grimly. "Nor I think to-morrow." "Good!" he answered. "For I can see nothing but water ahead, and it would be madness to go on by night without a guide. We must stay here until morning, whatever the risk." He spoke gloomily--and with reason. Our position was a miserable, almost a desperate one, even on the supposition that pursuit had ceased. We had lost all our baggage, food, wraps. We had no guides, and we were in the midst of a flooded country, with two tender women and a baby, our only shelter the porch of God's house. Mistress Anne, who was crouching in the darkest corner next the church, seemed to have collapsed entirely. I remembered afterward that I did not once hear her speak that night. The Duchess tried to maintain our spirits and her own; but in the face of cold, damp, and hunger, she could do little. Master Bertie and I took it by turns to keep a kind of watch, but by morning--it was a long night and a bitter one--we were worn out, and slept despite our misery. We should have been surprised and captured without a blow if the enemy had come upon us then.