“My uncle!” she exclaimed.  “He is in Scotland.”

De Lacy shook his head.  “He is now at Craigston Castle, whence I have just come, and bring you his loving greetings.”

“The dear old man!  How is he?”

“As strong as an oak, save for a slight wound.”

“Wounded!  How—­where?” she demanded, with sharp concern.

“Only a sword thrust in the thigh, got in a skirmish with some brigands about this hour yesterday,” said De Lacy; and told her the story of the fray in detail.

At the end the Countess arose.

“I must go now,” she said.  “The Duchess will need me; but first, tell me the other purpose that halted you here.”

“The other,” replied De Lacy slowly, “has been accomplished.”

She looked at him questioningly.

“How so, if it were on my account you tarried?”

Aymer smiled.

“That I shall leave for you to guess,” he said.

To his amazement the Countess did not reprove him, but blushed and looked away.

He bent eagerly toward her.

“My lady,” he said, “in all the years I have worn spurs, I have yet to ask gage of woman.  To-morrow I fare where there may be fightings enough, as you well know.  Grant me, I pray, some token, and let my first sword stroke in England be as your Knight.”

“Did you strike no blow yesterday?” she asked.

“None of which a soldier may be proud—­it was but a lot of canaille.”

For a moment the Countess looked him steadily in the eyes—­then answered in those tones of finality from which he knew there lay no appeal.

“Sir Aymer, you ask for that which no man has ever had from me.  Many times—­and I say it without pride—­has it been sought by Knights most worthy; yet to them all have I ever given nay.  Beatrix de Beaumont bestows nor gage nor favor until she plight her troth.”

With a smile, whose sweetness De Lacy long remembered in after days, she gave him her hand, and he bent low over it and touched it to his lips.  Then suddenly she whisked it from him and was gone behind the arras.

VIII

THE INN OF NORTHAMPTON

When De Lacy—­now in ordinary riding dress, his armor having been relegated to the baggage beasts—­reached the main highway the following morning, he looked in vain for the dust of Gloucester’s column or the glimmer of sun on steel.  The road was deserted.  Not a traveler was in sight, and there being no means of ascertaining if the Duke had passed, he adopted the only safe course and took up the march for London.  Presently, upon cresting a hill, they met a pair of Black Friars trudging slowly along towards York; but little information was obtained from them, for they had not been on the road yesterday, having spent the last week at a neighboring monastery, which they had quit only that morning.  It was rumored there, however, that the Duke of Gloucester had passed southward the prior day with a great train of attendants.  This, at least, was some slight indication, and thanking them courteously De Lacy jogged on; but it was not until they reached Doncaster, about noon, that accurate knowledge of the Duke was obtained.