lodging there. Quick, now, and get your cloak and hood. I have the
jewels in their case, for Maldon seeks them more even than your lands,
and with them all the money I can find. Also I have bid the sewing-girl
make a pack of some garments. Come now, come, for that Abbot is hungry
and will be stirring. There is no time for talk."



Three hours later in the red glow of the sunset Christopher Harflete,
watching at his door, saw two women riding towards him across the snow,
and knew them while they were yet far off.

"It is true, then," he said to Father Roger Necton, the old clergyman of
Cranwell, whom he had summoned from the vicarage. "I thought that fool
of a messenger must be drunk. What can have chanced, Father?"

"Death, I think, my son, for sure naught else would bring the Lady
Cicely here unaccompanied save by a waiting-woman. The question is--what
will happen now?" and he glanced sideways at him.

"I know well if I can get my way," answered Christopher, with a merry
laugh. "Say now, Father, if it should so be that this lady were willing,
could you marry us?"

"Without a doubt, my son, with the consent of the parents;" and again he
looked at him.

"And if there were no parents?"

"Then with the consent of the guardian, the bride being under age."