Kit was divided between two allegiances now. One was owing unalterably to the light which Lady Ingilby had shown him shining from Joan’s upper room. The other was Prince Rupert’s. Through all the muddled rides and skirmishes and swift alarms of that hard winter, the Metcalfs had heard constantly the praises of two men sung—Rupert’s and Cromwell’s. Rupert had succeeded in the raising of a cavalry troop that already, rumour said, was invincible; Cromwell was building up his Ironsides, grim and heavy, to meet the speed and headlong dash of Rupert’s men. Gradually, as the months went on, Kit shaped Prince Rupert to the likeness of a hero—a little less than saint, and more than man. Whenever he came home to Ripley, he roamed o’ nights, and looked up at Joan’s window, and shaped her, too, to the likeness of a maid too radiant for this world. He was in the thick of the high dreams that beset an untrained lad; but the dreams were building knighthood into the weft and woof of him, and no easy banter of the worldlings would alter that in years to come. Joan played cat’s-cradle with his heart. She would flout him for a day, and meet him at the supper-board thereafter with downcast eyes and tender voice; and Squire Metcalf would suppress his laughter when Kit confided to him that women were beyond his reckoning. Soon after dawn, on a day in late April, Kit stole out for a glance at the left wing of the Castle, where Joan’s window grew ruddy in the sunlight. Rain was falling, and a west wind was sobbing up across the sun. And suddenly he fancied that women were not beyond his reckoning. They were April bairns, all of them—gusty and cold, warm and full of cheer, by turns. He remembered other Aprils—scent of gilly-flowers in the garden far away in Yoredale, the look of Joan as she came down the fields to greet him—all the trouble and the fragrance of the days when he was giving his heart to her, not knowing it. He felt a sharp tap on his shoulder. "Day-dreaming, Kit?" laughed the Squire of Nappa. "Oh, she’s there, my lad, safe housed. I was about to knock on the gate, but I fancy you’d best take my message to Lady Ingilby." Kit was glad to take it, glad to be nearer by the width of the courtyard to that upper window. Women—who, for the most part, are practical and ruled by household worries—must laugh often at the men who care for them with true romance. When the gate was unbarred, and he had passed through, a kerchief fluttered down—a little thing of cambric, ladylike and foolish. Kit did not see it. His glance had roved to the upper window, and there, framed by the narrow mullions, was Joan’s face. "You do not care to pick it up," she said with a careless laugh. "How rough you are, you men of Yoredale." Kit saw the favour lying at his feet, and pinned it to his hat. When he glanced up again, the window overhead was empty, and Lady Ingilby, standing at his side, was bidding him good-morrow.