forehead and the still lips.

"Oh God! Oh God!" she murmured. "Why hast thou taken him? Outlaw though
he was, in his little finger was more of honor, of chivalry, of true
manhood than courses through the veins of all the nobles of England.

"I do not wonder that he preyed upon you," she cried, turning upon the
knights behind her. "His life was clean, thine be rotten; he was loyal
to his friends and to the downtrodden, ye be traitors at heart, all; and
ever be ye trampling upon those who be down that they may sink deeper
into the mud. Mon Dieu! How I hate you," she finished. And as she spoke
the words, Bertrade de Montfort looked straight into the eyes of her
father.

The old Earl turned his head, for at heart he was a brave, broad, kindly
man, and he regretted what he had done in the haste and heat of anger.

"Come, child," said the King, "thou art distraught; thou sayest what
thou mean not. The world is better that this man be dead. He was an
enemy of organized society, he preyed ever upon his fellows. Life in
England will be safer after this day. Do not weep over the clay of a
nameless adventurer who knew not his own father."

Someone had lifted the little, grim, gray, old man to a sitting posture.
He was not dead. Occasionally he coughed, and when he did, his frame was
racked with suffering, and blood flowed from his mouth and nostrils.

At last they saw that he was trying to speak. Weakly he motioned toward
the King. Henry came toward him.

"Thou hast won thy sovereign's gratitude, my man," said the King,
kindly. "What be thy name?"

The old fellow tried to speak, but the effort brought on another
paroxysm of coughing. At last he managed to whisper.

"Look--at--me. Dost thou--not--remember me?
The--foils--the--blow--twenty-long-years. Thou--spat--upon--me."

Henry knelt and peered into the dying face.

"De Vac!" he exclaimed.

The old man nodded. Then he pointed to where lay Norman of Torn.

"Outlaw--highwayman--scourge--of--England. Look--upon--his--face.
Open--his tunic--left--breast."

He stopped from very weakness, and then in another moment, with a final
effort: "De--Vac's--revenge. God--damn--the--English," and slipped
forward upon the rushes, dead.

The King had heard, and De Montfort and the Queen. They stood looking
into each other's eyes with a strange fixity, for what seemed an
eternity, before any dared to move; and then, as though they feared what
they should see, they bent over the fo