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