hat ought I to
say--to do rather, for talking is no use on this side the grave, nor on
the other either, I expect!" And then he asked himself whether his old
oath meant nothing or something; whether it was a mere tavern frolic, or
a sacred duty. And he held, the more that he looked at it, that it meant
the latter.

But what could he do? He had nothing on earth but his sword, so he could
not travel to find her. After all, she might not be gone far. Perhaps
not gone at all. It might be a mistake, an exaggerated scandal. He
would hope so. And yet it was evident that there had been some passages
between her and Don Guzman. Eustace's mysterious words about the promise
at Lundy proved that. The villain! He had felt all along that he was a
villain; but just the one to win a woman's heart, too. Frank had been
away--all the Brotherhood away. What a fool he had been, to turn the
wolf loose into the sheepfold! And yet who would have dreamed of
it? . . .

"At all events," said Amyas, trying to comfort himself, "I need not
complain. I have lost nothing. I stood no more chance of her against
Frank than I should have stood against the Don. So there is no use for
me to cry about the matter." And he tried to hum a tune concerning the
general frailty of women, but nevertheless, like Sir Hugh, felt that "he
had a great disposition to cry."

He never had expected to win her, and yet it seemed bitter to know that
she was lost to him forever. It was not so easy for a heart of his make
to toss away the image of a first love; and all the less easy because
that image was stained and ruined.

"Curses on the man who had done that deed! I will yet have his heart's
blood somehow, if I go round the world again to find him. If there's no
law for it on earth, there's law in heaven, or I'm much mistaken."

With which determination he rode into the ugly, dirty, and stupid town
of Okehampton, with which fallen man (by some strange perversity) has
chosen to defile one of the loveliest sites in the pleasant land of
Devon. And heartily did Amyas abuse the old town that day; for he was
detained there, as he expected, full three hours, while the Justice
Shallow of the place was sent for from his farm (whither he had gone
at sunrise, after the early-rising fashion of those days) to take Yeo's
deposition concerning last night's affray. Moreover, when Shallow came,
he refused to take the depositions, because they ought to have been made
before a brother Sh