"But Michael—you do not know him. He means so well and dares so much; but the first pretty face that looks out o’ window draws him." "To be frank, he is in no danger of that kind," said Miss Bingham demurely. "He lies in the next room and talks to me as Colonel Lovelace might—deft flattery and homage and what not. I thought all Cavaliers were smooth of tongue, as he is—until I met my Puritan." "You said that he had gone to seek Rupert." "Oh, I said. What will not women say? Their tongues are wayward." "For my part, give me men," said Kit, with blunt challenge. The end of that escapade was a high fever, that taxed Miss Bingham’s skill and the patience that was foreign to her. Michael, too, in spite of all his gaiety, saw death come very close to his bedside. It was not the blows they had taken here in Knaresborough that had knocked their strength to bits. In the months that had passed since the riding out from Yoredale, each had taken wounds, time and time again, had tied any sort of bandage round them, and gone forward to the next sharp attack. They were proud of their tough breed, and had taken liberties with a strength that was only human, after all. And now they were laid by in a backwater of life, like riddled battleships in need of overhauling. It was when Kit was in that odd half-way land between great weakness and returning strength that a sudden turmoil came to him. His memory of Joan Grant grew weak and fugitive. With him day by day was Miss Bingham, who had forgotten long since how to pick a quarrel. The beauty of an experience new to her spoiled life gave warmth and colour to a face that had once been merely pretty. On one of these afternoons—a spurt of rain against the windows, and the sullen roar of guns outside—he lay watching her as she sat by the bedside, busy with a foolish piece of embroidery. She was very near, had nursed him with devotion, had smoothed his pillow many times for him. "Agnes," he said, "what will you say to me when my strength comes back, and I’ve brought Rupert into York?" So then she knew that battle is not only for the men. She met her trouble with a courage that surprised her. "I—I should bid my Puritan go seek the lady who once flouted him. Oh, boy, you’re in a dream! When you wake, remember that I nursed you back to health." Two days later Kit was so far recovered that he was allowed to move abroad; and, while his strength was returning, the Vicar was his close companion. Something in Kit’s bearing—dour hardihood half concealing some spiritual fire that burned beneath it—had attracted this parish priest since the lad’s first coming. He showed him the comely parsonage, with its garden sloping to the wide bosom of the Nidd; talked of the town’s beauty and antiquity—topics dear to him. Then, one afternoon, near gloaming, he led him up the steep face of the cliff to St. Robert’s cell.