Alleyne.

"From Spain, say you? Ah! it was an ill and sorry thing that so many
should throw away the lives that Heaven gave them. In sooth, it is bad
for those who fall, but worse for those who bide behind. I have but now
bid farewell to one who hath lost all in this cruel war."

"And how that, lady?"

"She is a young damsel of these parts, and she goes now into a nunnery.
Alack! it is not a year since she was the fairest maid from Avon to
Itchen, and now it was more than I could abide to wait at Romsey Nunnery
to see her put the white veil upon her face, for she was made for a wife
and not for the cloister. Did you ever, gentle sir, hear of a body of
men called 'The White Company' over yonder?"

"Surely so," cried both the comrades.

"Her father was the leader of it, and her lover served under him as
squire. News hath come that not one of the Company was left alive, and
so, poor lamb, she hath----"

"Lady!" cried Alleyne, with catching breath, "is it the Lady Maude
Loring of whom you speak?"

"It is, in sooth."

"Maude! And in a nunnery! Did, then, the thought of her father's death
so move her?"

"Her father!" cried the lady, smiling. "Nay; Maude is a good daughter,
but I think it was this young golden-haired squire of whom I have heard
who has made her turn her back upon the world."

"And I stand talking here!" cried Alleyne wildly. "Come, John, come!"

Rushing to his horse, he swung himself into the saddle, and was off down
the road in a rolling cloud of dust as fast as his good steed could bear
him.

Great had been the rejoicing amid the Romsey nuns when the Lady Maude
Loring had craved admission into their order--for was she not sole child
and heiress of the old knight, with farms and fiefs which she could
bring to the great nunnery? Long and earnest had been the talks of the
gaunt lady abbess, in which she had conjured the young novice to turn
forever from the world, and to rest her bruised heart under the broad
and peaceful shelter of the church. And now, when all was settled, and
when abbess and lady superior had had their will, it was but fitting
that some pomp and show should mark the glad occasion. Hence was it that
the good burghers of Romsey were all in the streets, that gay flags and
flowers brightened the path from the nunnery to the church, and that a
long procession wound up to the old arched door leading up the bride to
these spiritual nuptials. There was lay-sister Agatha with the high