“Nay, sweet, I am here to ask his consent to my suit——­”

Then at last Sir John broke out.

“To ask my consent to your suit, you dishonest knave!” he roared from the darkness; whereat Cicely sank back into her chair looking as though she would faint, and the strong Christopher staggered like a man pierced by an arrow.  “First to take my girl and hug her before my very eyes, and then, when the mischief is done, to ask my consent to your suit!” and he rushed at them like a charging bull.

Cicely rose to fly, then, seeing no escape, took refuge in her lover’s arms.  Her infuriated father seized the first part of her that came to his hand, which chanced to be one of her long brown plaits of hair, and tugged at it till she cried out with pain, purposing to tear her away, at which sight and sound Christopher lost his temper also.

“Leave go of the maid, sir,” he said in a low, fierce voice, “or, by God!  I’ll make you.”

“Leave go of the maid?” gasped Sir John.  “Why, who holds her tightest, you or I?  Do you leave go of her.”

“Yes, yes, Christopher,” she whispered, “ere I am pulled in two.”

Then he obeyed, lifting her into the chair, but her father still kept his hold of the brown tress.

“Now, Sir Christopher,” he said, “I am minded to put my sword through you.”

“And pierce your daughter’s heart as well as mine.  Well, do it if you will, and when we are dead and you are childless, weep yourself and go to the grave.”

“Oh! father, father,” broke in Cicely, who knew the old man’s temper, and feared the worst, “in justice and in pity, listen to me.  All my heart is Christopher’s, and has been from a child.  With him I shall have happiness, without him black despair; and that is his case too, or so he swears.  Why, then, should you part us?  Is he not a proper man and of good lineage, and name unstained?  Until of late did you not ever favour him much and let us be together day by day?  And now, when it is too late, you deny him.  Oh! why, why?”

“You know why well enough, girl?  Because I have chosen another husband for you.  The Lord Despard is taken with your baby face, and would marry you.  But this morning I had it under his own hand.”

“The Lord Despard?” gasped Cicely.  “Why, he only buried his second wife last month!  Father, he is as old as you are, and drunken, and has grandchildren of well-nigh my age.  I would obey you in all things, but never will I go to him alive.”

“And never shall he live to take you,” muttered Christopher.

“What matter his years, daughter?  He is a sound man, and has no son, and should one be born to him, his will be the greatest heritage within three shires.  Moreover, I need his friendship, who have bitter enemies.  But enough of this.  Get you gone, Christopher, before worse befall you.”

“So be it, sir, I will go; but first, as an honest man and my father’s friend, and, as I thought, my own, answer me one question.  Why have you changed your tune to me of late?  Am I not the same Christopher Harflete I was a year or two ago?  And have I done aught to lower me in the world’s eye or in yours?”