se old uncle, and with it an answer to the question. Gold would bridge
the widest streams of human difference. These fine folk for all their
flauntings were poor. They came to me to borrow money wherewith to gild
their coronets and satisfy the importunate creditors at their door, lest
they should be pulled from their high place and forced back into the
number of the common herd as those who could no longer either give or
pay.

And after all, was this difference between them and me so wide? The
grandsire of Sir Robert Aleys, I had been told, gathered his wealth by
trade and usury in the old wars; indeed, it was said that he was one who
dealt in cattle, while Lord Deleroy was reported to be a bastard, if of
the bluest blood, so blue that it ran nigh to the royal purple. Well,
what was mine? On the father's side, Saxon descended from that of Thanes
who went down before the Normans and thereafter became humble landed
folk of the lesser sort. On the mother's, of the race of the old
sea-kings who slew and conquered through all the world they knew. Was I
then so far beneath these others? Nay, but like my father and my uncle I
was one who bought and sold and the hand of the dyer was stained to the
colour of his vat.

Thus stood the business. I, a stubborn man, not ill-favoured, to whom
Fortune had given wealth, was determined to win this woman who, it
seemed to me, looked upon me with no unkind eye since I had saved her
from certain perils. To myself then and there I swore I would win her.
The question was--how could it be done? I might enter the service of
the King and fight his battles and doubtless win myself a knighthood, or
more, which would open the closed gate.

Nay, it would take too long, and something warned me that time pressed.
That strange foreign man, Kari, said that Blanche was enamoured of this
Deleroy, and although I was wrath with him, setting his words down to
jealousy of any on whom I looked with kindness, I knew well that Kari
saw far. If I tarried, this rare white bird would slip from my hand into
another's cage. I must stir at once or let the matter be. Well, I had
wealth, so let wealth be my friend. Time enough to try war when it
failed me.

On the third day of the new year, which at this time of Court revelry
showed that the matter must indeed be pressing, I received those
particulars for which I had asked, together with a list of the lands and
tenements that Sir Robert Aleys was ready to put in