knew that Adhelmar could refuse her nothing. So she ran toward him, her
cheeks flushing arbutus-like, and she was smiling through her tears.

Oh, thought Adhelmar, were it not very easy to leave Hugues to the dog's
death he merits and to take this woman for my own? For I know that she
loves me a little. And thinking of this, he kissed her, quietly, as one
might comfort a sobbing child; afterward he held her in his arms for a
moment, wondering vaguely at the pliant thickness of her hair and the
sweet scent of it. Then he put her from him gently, and swore in his soul
that Hugues must die, so that this woman might be Adhelmar's.

"You will save him?" Melite asked, and raised her face to his. There was
that in her eyes which caused Adhelmar to muse for a little on the nature
of women's love, and, subsequently, to laugh harshly and make vehement
utterance.

"Yes!" said Adhelmar.

He demanded how many of Hugues' men were about. Some twenty of them had
come to Puysange, Melite said, in the hope that Reinault might aid them
to save their master. She protested that her brother was a coward for not
doing so; but Adhelmar, having his own opinion on this subject, and
thinking in his heart that Hugues' skin might easily be ripped off him
without spilling a pint of honest blood, said, simply: "Twenty and twenty
is two-score. It is not a large armament, but it may serve."

He told her his plan was to fall suddenly upon d'Andreghen and his men
that night, and in the tumult to steal Hugues away; whereafter, as
Adhelmar pointed out, Hugues might readily take ship for England, and
leave the marshal to blaspheme Fortune in Normandy, and the French King