.

Someone tapped at the door, turned the handle, and stood irresolutely
there peering into the darkness.

"Yes?" said Roger, advancing.

"Ah!" it was the surgeon's voice--"I beg your pardon, but finding you in
darkness--Yes, it's all right--a fine boy, and the mother, I should say,
doing well. Do you wish to go up?"

"God forbid!" said Roger, and led him to the kitchen, where the whisperers
started up at his entrance. In the middle of the room, on a board across
two trestles, lay something hidden by a white sheet--Trevarthen's body,
recovered from the ruins of the barn.

"He was my friend," said Roger simply, pausing by the corpse.
Then he turned with a grim smile on the malcontents. "Where's the
brandy?" he asked. "The doctor'll have a drink afore he turns out into
the night."

"No, I thank you, Mr. Stephen," said the young surgeon.

"Won't take it from me? Well, I thank ye all the same." He led his guest
forth, let him out by the wicket, and returned to the kitchen.

"Lads," said he, "the night's foggy yet. You may slip away to your homes,
if you go quiet. Step and tell the others, and send Malachi to me.
I--I thank ye, friends, but, as you've been arguing to yourselves, the
game's up; we won't stand another assault to-morrow."

They filed out and left him, none asking--as Trevarthen would have asked--
concerning his own safety. By Trevarthen's body Malachi found him
standing; and again, and in the same attitude, found him standing by it a
quarter of an hour later, when, having muffled the horses' hoofs in straw,
he returned to announce that all was ready, and the lane clear towards the
moors. In so short a time the whole garrison had melted away.

"He was my friend," said Roger again, looking down on the sheet, and
wondered why this man had loved him. Indeed, there was no explanation
except that Trevarthen had been just Trevarthen.

He followed Malachi, wondering the while if he had ever thrown Trevarthen
an affectionate word. Yet this man had cheerfully given up life for him,
as he, Roger Stephen, was at this moment giving up more than life for a
woman he hated.

He walked forth from Steens, leading his horse softly. At the foot of the
lane he mounted, looked back in the darkness, and lifted a fist against
the sky.

Then they headed eastward, and rode, Malachi and he, over the soundless
turf and through the fog, breasting the moor together.

A little after midnight, on the high ground,