snow, continually pausing to decide their course,
continually floundering in drifts. The sun soon left them; the glow of
the west decayed; and presently they were wandering in a shadow of
blackness, under frosty stars.

Presently, indeed, the moon would clear the hill-tops, and they might
resume their march. But till then, every random step might carry them
wider of their march. There was nothing for it but to camp and wait.

Sentries were posted; a spot of ground was cleared of snow, and after
some failures a good fire blazed in the midst. The men-at-arms sat close
about this forest hearth, sharing such provisions as they had, and
passing about the flask; and Dick, having collected the most delicate of
the rough and scanty fare, brought it to Lord Risingham's niece, where
she sat apart from the soldiery against a tree.

She sat upon one horse-cloth, wrapped in another, and stared straight
before her at the fire-lit scene. At the offer of food she started, like
one awakened from a dream, and then silently refused.

"Madam," said Dick, "let me beseech you, punish me not so cruelly.
Wherein I have offended you, I know not; I have, indeed, carried you
away, but with a friendly violence; I have, indeed, exposed you to the
inclemency of night, but the hurry that lies upon me hath for its end
the preservation of another, who is no less frail and no less unfriended
than yourself. At least, madam, punish not yourself; and eat, if not
for hunger, then for strength."

"I will eat nothing at the hands that slew my kinsman," she replied.

"Dear madam," Dick cried, "I swear to you, upon the rood, I touched him
not."

"Swear to me that he still lives," she returned.

"I will not palter with you," answered Dick. "Pity bids me to wound you.
In my heart I do believe him dead."

"And ye ask me to eat!" she cried. "Ay, and they call you 'sir'! Y' have
won your spurs by my good kinsman's murder. And had I not been fool and
traitor both, and saved you in your enemy's house, ye should have died
the death, and he--he that was worth twelve of you--were living."

"I did but my man's best, even as your kinsman did upon the other
party," answered Dick. "Were he still living--as I vow to Heaven I wish
it!--he would praise, not blame me."

"Sir Daniel hath told me," she replied. "He marked you at the barricade.
Upon you, he saith, their party foundered; it was you that won the
battle. Well, then, it was you that killed my good Lord Risi