One of the ruffians
mounted behind it, and the others also getting into their saddles the
party rode away.

They were mistaken, however, in supposing that the Lady Edith was dead.
She was indeed very nigh the gates of death, and had it not been for the
disturbance would assuredly have speedily entered them. The voice of her
husband raised in anger, the clash of steel, followed by the heavy fall,
had awakened her deadened brain. Consciousness had at once returned to
her, but as yet no power of movement. As at a great distance she had
heard the words of those who entered her chamber, and had understood
their import. More and more distinctly she heard their movements about
the room as they burst open her caskets and appropriated her jewels, but
it was not until silence was restored that the gathering powers of life
asserted themselves; then with a sudden rush the blood seemed to course
through her veins, her eyes opened, and her tongue was loosed, and with
a scream she sprang up and stood by the side of her bed.

Sustained as by a supernatural power she hurried into the next room. A
pool of blood on the floor showed her that what she had heard had not
been a dream or the fiction of a disordered brain. Snatching up a cloak
of her husband's which lay on a couch, she wrapped it round her, and
with hurried steps made her way along the passages until she reached the
apartment occupied by Ralph. The latter sprang up in bed with a cry of
astonishment. He had heard but an hour before from Walter that all
hope was gone, and thought for an instant that the appearance was an
apparition from the dead. The ghastly pallor of the face, the eyes
burning with a strange light, the flowing hair, and disordered
appearance of the girl might well have alarmed one living in even less
superstitious times, and Ralph began to cross himself hastily and to
mutter a prayer when recalled to himself by the sound of Edith's voice.

"Quick, Ralph!" she said, "arise and clothe yourself. Hasten, for your
life. My lord's enemies have fallen upon him and wounded him grievously,
even if they have not slain him, and have carried him away. They would
have slain me also had they not thought I was already dead. Arise and
mount, summon everyone still alive in the village, and follow these
murderers. I will pull the alarm-bell of the castle."

Ralph sprang from his bed as Edith left. He had heard the sound of many
footsteps in the knight's apartments, but had de