slowly rising, folding
the letter he had written, and sealing it with his signet-ring. "You
must take this letter to-day to the Lady Abbess of the Convent of Mont
Salvair, and to-morrow she must send me off my daughter Garcinde, for I
have something to say to her. And as I myself cannot reach her--my ride
this night has done me harm, and my gout admonishes me to get into bed
rather than into the saddle--I could wish that you should escort your
cousin, and see to her safe journey hither. Take a servant with you who
will bring back, on a baggage-horse, whatever may be personally needed,
till the abbess can send the rest. The convent will lend Garcinde a
horse. I have requested this to be done in my letter. You will rest for
a night half-way, at the farm of La Vaquiera, my daughter being
unaccustomed to riding, and the summer heat great. On the evening of
the third day I shall expect to see you here."

The youth received the letter, lingered for a moment on the threshold
as though some question were burning on his lips, then merely said, "It
shall be done, my lord," and with a slight inclination, took his
departure. When he got outside the door, he fancied that he heard
himself recalled, and stood still a moment to see whether it really
were so, but hearing nothing further he ran down the winding-stair, got
his horse out of the stable, gave the requisite orders to one of the
few servants that remained about the fallen house, and as the man was
sleepy and slow in his movements, ordered him to follow after, while he
himself sprang through the gate past the wondering porter, to whose
questions as to what the Count wanted, and whether it really were all
over with him, he merely replied by a shrug of the shoulders.

The reason of his haste in fulfilling his mission, was a fear that the
Count might change his mind and call him back, for during the eight
years that his cousin had been away from her father's house, whenever a
message had to be sent to her, he was never the one appointed to carry
it, and there seemed to be a deliberate purpose to prevent their
meeting. It is true that when they were both children there had been
no one of whom the little Countess was so fond as of her silent,
proud-spirited playfellow, the wandering minstrel's son, who at that
time already led a strange and solitary life in the small tower where
his mother had died. The servants had concluded that it was on account
of young Geoffrey that Sir Hugo h