boarded door was thrown back, and 'Madame, more wounded,'
resounded. The thrill of terror, the elastic reaction, at the ensuing
words, 'from the north gate,' was what made Eustacie in an instant know
herself to be not widow but wife. She turned round at once, holding out
her hand, and saying with a shaken, agitated voice, '_Mon frere_,
pardon me, I know not what I say; and, after all, he will find me _bien
mechante_ still.' Then as Philip devoured her hand with kisses, and held
it fast, 'I must go; these poor men need me. When I can, I will return.'

'Only let me have the little one,' entreated Philip; 'it is almost home
already to look at her.'

And when Eustacie next looked in on them, they were both fast asleep.

She, poor thing, the only woman with brains among the many scared
females in the garrison, might not rest or look the wonder in the face.
Fresh sufferers needed her care, and related gallant things of 'the
Duke's Englishman,' things of desperate daring and prowess that sent the
blood throbbing to her heart with exultation, but only to be followed by
a pang of anguish at having let him go back to peril--nay, perhaps, to
death--without a word of tenderness or even recognition. She imaged him
as the sunny-faced youth who had claimed her in the royal castle, and
her longing to be at his side and cling to him as his own became every
moment more fervent and irresistible, until she gladly recollected the
necessity of carrying food to the defenders; and snatching an interval
from her hospital cares, she sped to the old circular kitchen of the
monastery, where she found the lame baker vainly trying to organize a
party of frightened women to carry provisions to the garrison of the
bridge-tower.

'Give some to me,' she said. 'My husband is there! I am come to fetch
his dinner.'

The peasant women looked and whispered as if they thought that, to add
to their misfortunes, their Lady of Hope had become distracted by grief;
and one or two, who held the old faith, and were like the crane among
the sparrows, even observed that it was a judgment for the profane
name that had been given her, against which she had herself uniformly
protested.

'My husband is come,' said Eustacie, looking round with shining eyes.
'Let us be brave wives, and not let our men famish.'

She lifted a loaf and a pitcher of broth, and with the latter poised on
her erect and graceful head, and elastic though steady step, she led the
way; the oth