"Ha! ha!" laughed Edmund even as they grappled. "Who is the traitor
forsooth? Why, 'tis my father who should be King. 'Tis white-faced
Harry and his Beauforts--"

The words were cut short by a blow from Leonard, and the warder
presently found the two boys rolling on the floor together in hot
contest.

And meanwhile poor Grisell was trying to frame with her torn and
flayed cheeks and lips, "O lady, lady, visit it not on him! Let not
Leonard be punished. It was my fault for getting into his way when I
should have been in the garden. Dear Madge, canst thou speak for
him?"

Madge was Edmund's sister, Margaret of York, who stood trembling and
crying by Grisell's bed.



CHAPTER II--THE BROKEN MATCH



The Earl of Salisbury, called Prudence.

Contemporary Poem.

Little Grisell Dacre did not die, though day after day she lay in a
suffering condition, tenderly watched over by the Countess Alice.