While the wine was between the bottle and the glass, a little lady came into the hall. She had a carrot in her hand, and trouble was lurking in her young, patrician face. "Who is this, Ben?" she asked, withdrawing a step or two, as she saw the patched and mud-stained figure on the settle. "Michael Metcalf, at your service. No need to ask your servant vouch for me." He had risen. From his great height, shivering and unsteady, he looked down at her. "But, sir, you are unlike yourself. Your eyes are wild." "So would your pretty eyes be, Mistress Joan, if you’d shared Marston Fight with me. I’ve seen a King lose his cause—his head may follow." Joan was aware of some new strength behind the man’s present disarray. "Does your love for the King go so deep, then? We thought you light of heart." "Always the same gibe. I have talked with the King, and I know. Our lives were slight in the losing, if we had given him the battle. But we lost it. What matters now, Joan?" "This, sir—that the King still needs his gentlemen." Michael stood to attention. She had always bettered his outlook on life, even in his careless days. Now, with every nerve at strain, she showed him a glad, narrow track that went upward, climbing by the ladder of adversity. "As for that," he said, with an odd smile, "I thank you for a word in season. It will keep Sir William’s cellars from a period of drought." Waddilove, watching the man, could only wonder at his sharp return to self-control. He did not know that, so far as Michael was concerned, Joan Grant brought always the gift of healing. "Heartsease, that’s for remembrance," said Michael, after a troubled silence, "and carrots, they’re for Elizabeth the well-beloved." She caught the sudden hope, the challenge in his glance. Clearly as if he had put the thought into speech, she knew that he clung to the old love, told more than once in Yoredale. He hoped—so wild a lover’s fancy can be—that, because she fed his ass with dainties, she did it for the master’s sake. "Ah, no," she said sharply. "It is not good to play at make-believe. There is trouble at our doors—the King’s cause drowning, and men lying dead out yonder. I go to feed Elizabeth, and you, sir, will stay here to guard the house." Michael kicked the logs into a blaze, and watched the flames go up with a steady, thrifty roar. He turned presently, to find Waddilove asking whether he did not need a second brimmer of Madeira. "To-morrow, you old fool! For to-night, I’ve the house to guard. Meanwhile, I’ve lit a lively fire—all my hopes, Ben, and most of my prayers, have gone scummering up the chimney-stack. I trust they find good weather out o’ doors."