himself and
his followers when his elopement was first planned, enabled Osbert to
carry his whole crew safely past all the stations where passports were
demanded. He had much wished to procure surgical aid at Rouen, but
learning from the boatmen on the river that the like bloody scenes were
there being enacted, he had decide on going on to his master's English
home as soon as possible, merely trusting to his own skill by the way;
and though it was the slightest possible hope, yet the healthy state
of the wounds, and the mere fact of life continuing, had given him some
faint trust that there might be a partial recovery.

Lord Walwyn repeated his agitated thanks and praises for such devotion
to his grandson.

Osbert bower, laid his hand on his heart, and replied--'Monseigneur is
good, but what say I? Monsieur le Baron is my foster-brother! Say that,
and all is said in one word.'

He was then dismissed, with orders to take some rest, but he obstinately
refused all commands in French or English to go to bed, and was found
some time after fast asleep.

CHAPTER XIV. SWEET HEART

Ye hae marred a bonnier face than your ain.
DYING WORDS OF THE BONNIE EARL OF MORAY

One room at Hurst Walwyn, though large, wainscoted, and well furnished,
bore as pertinaciously the air of a cell as the appearance of Sister
Cecily St. John continued like that of a nun. There was a large sunny
oriel, in which a thrush sang merrily in a wicker cage; and yet the very
central point and leading feature of the room was the altar-like table,
covered with rich needlework, with a carved ebony crucifix placed on it,
and on the wall above, quaint and stiff, but lovely-featured, delicately
tinted pictures of Our Lady in the centre, and of St. Anne and St.
Cecilia on either side, with skies behind of most ethereal blue, and
robes tenderly trimmed with gold. A little shrine of purple spar, with a
crystal front, contained a fragment of sacred bone; a silver shell help
holy water, perpetuated from some blessed by Bishop Ridley.

'With velvet bound and broidered o'er,
Her breviary book'

Lay open at 'Sext,' and there, too, lay with its three marks at the
Daily Lessons, the Bishop's Bible, and the Common Prayer beside it.

The elder Baron de Ribaumont had never pardoned Cecily his single glance
at that table, and had seriously remonstrated with his father-in-law
for permitting its existence, q