w," she said. "The Duchess will need me; but first, tell
me the other purpose that halted you here."

"The other," replied De Lacy slowly, "has been accomplished."

She looked at him questioningly.

"How so, if it were on my account you tarried?"

Aymer smiled.

"That I shall leave for you to guess," he said.

To his amazement the Countess did not reprove him, but blushed and
looked away.

He bent eagerly toward her.

"My lady," he said, "in all the years I have worn spurs, I have yet to
ask gage of woman. To-morrow I fare where there may be fightings
enough, as you well know. Grant me, I pray, some token, and let my
first sword stroke in England be as your Knight."

"Did you strike no blow yesterday?" she asked.

"None of which a soldier may be proud--it was but a lot of _canaille_."

For a moment the Countess looked him steadily in the eyes--then
answered in those tones of finality from which he knew there lay no
appeal.

"Sir Aymer, you ask for that which no man has ever had from me. Many
times--and I say it without pride--has it been sought by Knights most
worthy; yet to them all have I ever given nay. Beatrix de Beaumont
bestows nor gage nor favor until she plight her troth."

With a smile, whose sweetness De Lacy long remembered in after days,
she gave him her hand, and he bent low over it and touched it to his
lips. Then suddenly she whisked it from him and was gone behind the
arras.

VIII

THE INN OF NORTHAMPTON

When De Lacy--now in ordinary riding dress, his armor having been
relegated to the baggage beasts--reached the main highway the following
morning, he looked in vain for the dust of Gloucester's column or the
glimmer of sun on steel. The road was deserted. Not a traveler was in
sight, and there being no means of ascertaining if the Duke had passed,
he adopted the only safe course and took up the march for London.
Presently, upon cresting a hill, they met a pair of Black Friars
trudging slowly along towards York; but little information was obtained
from them, for they had not been on the road yesterday, having spent
the last week at a neighboring monastery, which they had quit only that
morning. It was rumored there, however, that the Duke of Gloucester
had passed southward the prior day with a great train of attendants.
This, at least, was some slight indication, and thanking them
courteously De Lacy jogged on; but it was not until they reached
Doncaster, about noon,