De Lacy arose. "No, but maybe I have found them since."

Suddenly De Wilton laughed. "My mind surely is getting weak," he said.
"I clean forgot you had never seen the Countess."

"Oh, yes, I have--on the wall last night."

"Was it possible you were near when Darby found her?"

"I was with her."

"With her!" said De Wilton incredulously. "Surely you do not mean it."

De Lacy's face straightened. "Be a little more explicit, please," he
said.

"Tut, man, I meant no offence," was the good-natured answer. "You do
not understand the matter. The Countess never walks alone on the
ramparts after dark with any man save the Duke and me."

"St. Denis, I forgot. It was _you_ she walked with," said Aymer.

De Wilton stared at him. "Are you quite sane?" he asked.

De Lacy linked his arm within the other's. "Come over to the window
and I will tell you how, last night, Sir Ralph de Wilton chanced to
walk with the Countess of Clare on the ramparts of Pontefract."

"And I suppose then it was you, and not I, who talked with the Duchess
in her presence chamber all the time the Countess of Clare was gone."