shelter and help there.
If he had tried to march with us, he must assuredly have died."

"Ha!" said Alphonso smilingly, "methinks Llewelyn will have no trouble
in gaining entrance there. Rememberest thou the Lady Arthyn, who was
with us at Rhuddlan when thou wast there before? She hath left us of
late to return to her father, whose loyalty has been proved, and whose
request for his child was listened to graciously. But we shall be seeing
them soon again, for my father betrothed Arthyn's hand to Raoul Latimer,
whom doubtless thou rememberest as a somewhat haughty and quarrelsome
lad. Time has softened down some of his rude tempers, and he has ever
been eager for the match. My father has promised her hand in troth
plight to him, and we await the coming of her and her father for the
ceremony of betrothal.

"If I remember rightly, she was always a friend to thy brother. If so,
he will find a ready welcome at her father's house, for my Lady Arthyn
always had a soft spot in her heart for those we called rebels. She was
a true daughter of Wales, albeit she loved us well, and she will like
thy brother none the less that his sword has been unsheathed against the
English usurper."

And then the prince and the rebel subject both laughed, and that laugh
did more to bring them back to their old familiar relations than all
that had gone before.

Griffeth was easily led on to tell the story of the life at Dynevor
these past years; and Alphonso better understood from his unconscious
self-betrayal than from his previous explanation how the fire of
patriotic love burned in the hearts of these brothers. He thought that
had he been one of them he would have acted even as they had done, and
there was no anger but only a pitying affection in his heart towards one
whose life was overshadowed by a cloud so like the one which hung upon
the horizon of his own sky.

For it was plain to him that Griffeth's hold on life was very slight;
that he was suffering from the same insidious disease which was sapping
away his own health and strength. He had suspected it years before, and
this supposition had made a link between them then; now he was certain
of it, and certain, too, that the end could not be very far off. The
fine constitution of the young Welshman had been undermined by the
rigours of the past winter, and there was little hope that the coming
summer would restore to him any of the fictitious strength which had
long buoyed up Wendot wit