steward, bowing deeply, answered that his lord was absent on a journey;
and the messenger turned and rode away, without bite or sup. But,
riding on to Stortford Castle, he found Sir Arnold, and delivered the
king's bidding with more effect, and was hospitably treated with meat
and drink. Sir Arnold armed himself slowly in full mail, saving his
head, for the weather was strangely warm, and he would ride in his hat
rather than wear the heavy steel cap with the broad nose-guard. Before
an hour had passed he was mounted, with his men, and his footmen were
marching before and behind him on the broad Hertford road. But he had
sent a messenger secretly to the Lady Goda, to tell her that he was
gone; and after that she heard nothing for many days.

In the morning, and after dinner, and before sunset, she came every day
to the little garden under the west wall of the manor, and looked long
toward the road--not that she wished Sir Raymond back, nor that she
cared when Gilbert came, but she well knew that the return of either
would mean that the fighting was over, and that Sir Arnold, too, would
be at leisure to go home.

On that fifth of May, as the sun was going down, she stood still and
looked out toward the road for the tenth time since Curboil had gone to
join the king. The sun sank lower, and still she saw nothing; and she
felt the chill of the damp evening air, and would have turned to go in,
but something held her. Far up the road, on the brow of the rising
ground, she saw a tiny spark, a little dancing flame like the corpse-
candles that run along the graves on a summer's night--first one, then
all at once three, then, as it seemed to her, a score at least, swaying
a little above a compact dark mass against the red sky. The lights were
like little stars rising and falling on the horizon, and always just
above a low, black cloud. A moment more, and the evening breeze out of