clenched his
hands until the nails cut into his palms. Then he put an arm about this
lad he loved above all save one in the whole world, and with anguish in
his mind he supported him forward to the fire. There Lionel dropped to
the chair that Sir Oliver had lately occupied.

"What is your hurt, lad? Has it gone deep?" he asked, in terror almost.

"'Tis naught--a flesh wound; but I have lost a mort of blood. I thought
I should have been drained or ever I got me home."

With fearful speed Sir Oliver drew his dagger and ripped away doublet,
vest, and shirt, laying bare the lad's white flesh. A moment's
examination, and he breathed more freely.

"Art a very babe, Lal," he cried in his relief. "To ride without thought
to stanch so simple a wound, and so lose all this blood--bad Tressilian
blood though it be." He laughed in the immensity of his reaction from
that momentary terror. "Stay thou there whilst I call Nick to help us
dress this scratch."

"No, no!" There was note of sudden fear in the lad's voice, and his hand
clutched at his brother's sleeve. "Nick must not know. None must know,
or I am undone else."

Sir Oliver stared, bewildered. Lionel smiled again that curious twisted,
rather frightened smile.

"I gave better than I took, Noll," said he. "Master Godolphin is as cold
by now as the snow on which I left him."

His brother's sudden start and the fixed stare from out of his slowly
paling face scared Lionel a little. He observed, almost subconsciously,
the dull red wheal that came into prominence as the colour faded out of
Sir Oliver's face, yet never thought to ask how it came there. His own
affairs possessed him too completely.

"What's this?" quoth Oliver at last, hoarsely.

Lionel dropped his eyes, unable longer to meet a glance that was
becoming terrible.

"He would have it," he growled almost sullenly, answering the reproach
that was written in every line of his brother's taut body. "I had warned
him not to cross my path. But to-night I think some madness had seized
upon him. He affronted me, Noll; he said things which it was beyond
human power to endure, and...." He shrugged to complete his sentence.

"Well, well," said Oliver in a small voice. "First let us tend this
wound of yours."

"Do not call Nick," was the other's swift admonition. "Don't you see,
Noll?" he explained in answer to the inquiry of his brother's stare,
"don't you see that we fought there almost in the dark and without
witne