the bend. I turned to find Gil and half-a-dozen servants
standing with pale faces at my back. Croisette seized my hand
with a sob. "Oh, my lord," cried Gil, quaveringly. But I shook
one off, I frowned at the other.

"Take up this carrion!" I said, touching it with my foot, "And
hang it from the justice-elm. And then close the gates! See to
it, knaves, and lose no time."



CHAPTER II.

THE VIDAME'S THREAT.

Croisette used to tell a story, of the facts of which I have no
remembrance, save as a bad dream. He would have it that I left
my pallet that night--I had one to myself in the summer, being
the eldest, while he and Marie slept on another in the same room
--and came to him and awoke him, sobbing and shaking and
clutching him; and begging him in a fit of terror not to let me
go. And that so I slept in his arms until morning. But as I
have said, I do not remember anything of this, only that I had an
ugly dream that night, and that when I awoke I was lying with him
and Marie; so I cannot say whether it really happened.

At any rate, if I had any feeling of the kind it did not last
long; on the contrary--it would be idle to deny it--I was
flattered by the sudden respect, Gil and the servants showed me.
What Catherine thought of the matter I could not tell. She had