est spoke.

"Norman of Torn," he said, "so long as thou remain in England, pitting
thy great host against the Plantagenet King and the nobles and barons of
his realm, thou be but serving as the cats-paw of another. Thyself hast
said an hundred times that thou knowst not the reason for thy hatred
against them. Thou be too strong a man to so throw thy life uselessly
away to satisfy the choler of another.

"There be that of which I dare not speak to thee yet and only may I
guess and dream of what I think, nor do I know whether I must hope
that it be false or true, but now, if ever, the time hath come for the
question to be settled. Thou hast not told me in so many words, but I be
an old man and versed in reading true between the lines, and so I know
that thou lovest Bertrade de Montfort. Nay, do not deny it. And now,
what I would say be this. In all England there lives no more honorable
man than Simon de Montfort, nor none who could more truly decide upon
thy future and thy past. Thou may not understand of what I hint, but
thou know that thou may trust me, Norman of Torn."

"Yea, even with my life and honor, my father," replied the outlaw.

"Then promise me, that with the old man of Torn alone, thou wilt come
hither when I bidst thee and meet Simon de Montfort, and abide by his
decision should my surmises concerning thee be correct. He will be the
best judge of any in England, save two who must now remain nameless."

"I will come, Father, but it must be soon for on the fourth day we ride
south."

"It shall be by the third day, or not at all," replied Father Claude,
and Norman of Torn, rising to leave, wondered at the moving leaves of
the lilac bush without the window, for there was no breeze.

Spizo, the Spaniard, reached Torn several minutes before the outlaw
chief and had already poured his tale into the ears of the little, grim,
gray, old man.

As the priest's words were detailed to him the old man of Torn paled in
anger.

"The fool priest will upset the whole work to which I have devoted
near twenty years," he muttered, "if I find not the means to quiet his
half-wit tongue. Between priest and petticoat, it be all but ruined now.
Well then, so much the sooner must I act, and I know not but that now be
as good a time as any. If we come near enough to the King's men on this
trip south, the gibbet shall have its own, and a Plantagenet dog shall
taste the fruits of his own tyranny," then glancing up and realizing