and I went on. 'In those wars I met a man who was
named Teule, but who had another name in former days, so he told me on
his deathbed some two years ago.'

'What name?' she asked in a low voice.

'Thomas Wingfield.'

Now Lily moaned aloud, and in her turn caught at the pales to save
herself from falling.

'I deemed him dead these eighteen years,' she gasped; 'drowned in the
Indian seas where his vessel foundered.'

'I have heard say that he was shipwrecked in those seas, senora, but he
escaped death and fell among the Indians, who made a god of him and gave
him the daughter of their king in marriage,' and I paused.

She shivered, then said in a hard voice, 'Continue, sir; I listen to
you.'

'My friend Teule took the part of the Indians in the wars, as being
the husband of one of their princesses he must do in honour, and fought
bravely for them for many years. At length the town that he defended was
captured, his one remaining child was murdered, his wife the princess
slew herself for sorrow, and he himself was taken into captivity, where
he languished and died.'

'A sad tale, sir,' she said with a little laugh--a mournful laugh that
was half choked by tears.

'A very sad tale, senora, but one which is not finished. While he lay
dying, my friend told me that in his early life he had plighted troth
with a certain English maid, named--'

'I know the name--continue.'

'He told me that though he had been wedded, and loved his wife the
princess, who was a very royal woman, that many times had risked her
life for his, ay, even to lying at his side upon the stone of sacrifice
and of her own free will, yet the memory of this maiden to whom he was
once betrothed had companioned him through life and was strong upon him
now at its close. Therefore he prayed me for our friendship's sake to
seek her out when I returned to Europe, should she still live, and to
give her a message from him, and to make a prayer to her on his behalf.'

'What message and what prayer?' Lily whispered.

'This: that he loved her at the end of his life as he had loved her
at its beginning; that he humbly prayed her forgiveness because he had
broken the troth which they two swore beneath the beech at Ditchingham.'

'Sir,' she cried, 'what do you know of that?'

'Only what my friend told me, senora.'

'Your friendship must have been close and your memory must be good,' she
murmured.

'Which he had done,' I went on, 'under strange circums