ty men-at-arms.

Scarcely had Bertrade de Montfort left him ere Norman of Torn heard the
tramping of many feet. They seemed approaching up the dim corridor that
led to the little door of the apartment where he stood.

Quickly, he moved to the opposite door and, standing with his hand upon
the latch, waited. Yes, they were coming that way, many of them and
quickly and, as he heard them pause without, he drew aside the arras and
pushed open the door behind him; backing into the other apartment just
as Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, burst into the room from the
opposite side.

At the same instant, a scream rang out behind Norman of Torn, and,
turning, he faced a brightly lighted room in which sat Eleanor, Queen
of England and another Eleanor, wife of Simon de Montfort, with their
ladies.

There was no hiding now, and no escape; for run he would not, even had
there been where to run. Slowly, he backed away from the door toward a
corner where, with his back against a wall and a table at his right,
he might die as he had lived, fighting; for Norman of Torn knew that he
could hope for no quarter from the men who had him cornered there like a
great bear in a trap.

With an army at their call, it were an easy thing to take a lone man,
even though that man were the Devil of Torn.

The King and De Montfort had now crossed the smaller apartment and were
within the room where the outlaw stood at bay.

At the far side, the group of royal and noble women stood huddled
together, while behind De Montfort and the King pushed twenty gentlemen
and as many men-at-arms.

"What dost thou here, Norman of Torn?" cried De Montfort, angrily.
"Where be my daughter, Bertrade?"

"I be here, My Lord Earl, to attend to mine own affairs," replied Norman
of Torn, "which be the affair of no other man. As to your daughter: I
know nothing of her whereabouts. What should she have to do with the
Devil of Torn, My Lord?"

De Montfort turned toward the little gray man.

"He lies," shouted he. "Her kisses be yet wet upon his lips."

Norman of Torn looked at the speaker and, beneath the visor that was now
partly raised, he saw the features of the man whom, for twenty years, he
had called father.

He had never expected love from this hard old man, but treachery and
harm from him? No, he could not believe it. One of them must have gone
mad. But why Flory's armor and where was the faithful Flory?

"Father!" he ejaculated, "leadest thou the