er smile nor yet her word, but
stood like a mother who sees a first-born son treading in places
perilous, yet dares not warn him, knowing well that she would drive
him to giddier and yet more dangerous heights.

The pennons of the escort fluttered in the breeze as the men on
horseback tossed their lances high in the air, in salutation of their
lord. The archer guard stood ranked and ready, bows on their shoulders
and arrows in quiver. Horses neighed, armour clanked and sparkled, and
from the moat platform twenty silver trumpets blared a fanfare as the
Lady Sybilla, the arbiter of this day's chivalry, mounted her palfrey
with the help of Earl Douglas. She thanked him with a low word in his
ear, audible only to himself, as he set her in the saddle and bent to
kiss her hand.

A right gallant pair were Douglas and Sybilla de Thouars as they rode
away, their heads close together, over the green sward and under the
tossing banners of the bridge. Sholto was behind them giving great
heed to the managing of his horse, and wondering in his heart if
indeed Maud Lindesay were looking down from her chamber window. As
they passed the drawbridge he turned him about in his saddle, as it
were, to see that his men rode all in good order. A little jet of
white fluttered quickly from the sparred wooden gallery which clung to
the grey walls of Thrieve, just outside the highest story. And the
young man's heart told him that this was the atonement of Mistress
Maud Lindesay.

Earl Douglas was in his gayest humour on this second day of the great
tourneying. He had got rid of his most troublesome guests. His uncle
James of Avondale, his red cousin of Angus, the grave ill-assorted
figure of the Abbot of Dulce Cor, had all vanished. Only the young and
chivalrous remained,--his cousins, William and James, Hugh and
Archibald, good lances all and excellent fellows to boot. It was also
a most noble chance that the French ambassador was confined by the
quinsy, for it was certainly pleasant to ride out alone with that
beauteous head glancing so near his shoulder, to watch at will the sun
crimsoning yet more the red lips, sparkling in the eyes that were
bright as sunshine slanting through green leaves on a water-break, and
to mark as he fell a pace behind how every hair of that luxuriant coif
rippled golden and separate, like a halo of Florentine work about the
head of a saint.

The Lady Sybilla de Thouars was merry also, but with what a different