art,' he said,
'I am truly in no state to handle so pure a piece of sugar as thou; I
should have rid myself of the battle-stains ere touching thee, but how
recollect anything at such a moment?'

Eustacie was glad he had broken the spell of silence; for having
recovered her husband, her first instinct was to wait upon him. She took
the child from him, explaining that she was going to put her to bed in
her own rooms up the stone stair, which for the present were filled with
fugitive women and children who had come in from the country, so that
the chancel must continue the lodging of Berenger and his brother;
and for the time of her absence she brought him water to wash away the
stains, and set before him the soup she had kept warm over her little
charcoal brazier. It was only when thus left that he could own, in
answer to Philip's inquiries, that he could feel either hunger or
weariness; nay, he would only acknowledge enough of the latter to give
a perfect charm to rest under such auspices. Eustacie had dispatched her
motherly cares promptly enough to be with him again just as in taking
off his corselet he had found that it had been pierced by a bullet,
and pursuing the trace, through his doublet, he found it lodged in that
purse which he had so long worn next his heart, where it had spent its
force against the single pearl of Ribaumont. And holding it up to the
light, he saw that it was of silver. Then there returned on him and
Philip the words they had heard two days before, of silver bullets
forged for the destruction of the white moonlight fairy, and he further
remembered the moment's shock and blow that in the midst of his wild
amaze on the river's bank had made him gather his breath and strength to
bound desperately upwards, lest the next moment he should find himself
wounded and powerless.

For the innocent, then, had the shot been intended; and she running
into danger out of her sweet, tender instincts of helpfulness, had been
barely saved at the extreme peril of her unconscious father's life.
Philip, whose vehement affection for the little one had been growing
all day, was in the act of telling Berenger to string the bullet in the
place of the injured pearl, as the most precious heirloom of Ribaumont
bravery, when Eustacie returned, and learning all, grew pale and
shuddered as danger had never made her do before: but this strange day
had almost made a coward of her.

'And this is has spared,' said Berenger, ta