is youth, though under a ban.

When Richard returned, there followed him like a dog a horse of the
North-country breed, shaggy, and in size not much greater than a
stag-hound. Robert viewed him with surprise, and it seemed with
derision.

"Despise not him who is able to bear thee out of the wood," said
Richard. "Thou art faint; here is wine, and of no mean vintage."

Robert drank from the earthen bottle, and his eye grew brighter, yet
looked it not the more lovingly on Richard. He ate right gladly of the
store of the landless and penniless,--dried venison and oaten
bread,--and was refreshed, yet thanked him not. Richard gave fragments
to the neighing steed. He ate no morsel himself, nor tasted the
wine. His heart was full to bursting.

"Tell me of home,--of--of our father," he said, at last, with deep,
strong sobs.

"On the morrow, on the morrow," said Robert, disposing himself for
sleep. "Thou wilt hear soon enough."

But Richard seized him wildly by the shoulder, and bade him tell the
worst.

"Nay, then, if thou _wilt_ know, he is dead. I, thy younger brother,
am now thy superior."

"For that I care not. As well thou, as I, to sit in my father's
seat. But oh! left he no blessing for me? Did he not at the last
believe me the victim of calumny?--Alas! No word? Not one dying
thought of Richard?"

"He died suddenly."

Richard wept long and bitterly, and when, with faltering tongue, he
asked tidings of his betrothed, his face was covered; he saw not the
guilty flush upon his brother's brow, for that he had spread a lying
report of the exile's death.

"Would Bertha still brave the king's displeasure? Was she yet true to
the unfortunate?"

"Bertha is a very woman. She hath forgotten the absent lover, and
chosen another, and a better man."

"Who, who hath supplanted me?" cried Richard fiercely, and springing
upon his feet.

"I tell thee not, lest thou wreak on him thy spite against thy
faithless fair."

"Know that Bertha's choice, though a traitor, is safe from me, even
were I, as I was, a man to meet a knight on equal terms."

His generous heart could not dream of fraternal treachery. And when
his rival saw this, and that he suspected him not as yet, he smiled to
himself, turned his face to the wall, and closed his eyes, if so be he
might cut off further question. Soon, falling into slumber, he
clenched his hands, and ground his teeth. The sleep of a traitor is
ever haunted by uneasy dreams, and dark