was
exchanged, and the sentinels lowered their arms on recognizing one of
their leaders.

"Let this boy have egress and ingress from and to this tent,
unquestioned and unmolested," he said; "he has the Earl of Hereford's
permission, nay, commands, to wait on Sir Nigel Bruce. His business
lieth principally with him; but if he hath need to quit his side, he is
to pass free. Report this to your comrades." The soldiers bowed in
respectful acquiescence. "For thee, young man, this toy will give thee
free passage where thou listeth, none shall molest thee; and now,
farewell--God speed thee." He unclasped a ruby brooch, curiously set in
antique gold, from his collar, and placed it in the boy's hand.

"Dost thou not enter?" asked the page, in a voice that quivered, and the
light of the torches falling full on his face disclosed to Lancaster a
look of such voiceless gratitude, it haunted him for many a long day.

"No," he said, half smiling, and in a lower voice; "hast thou forgotten
thy cause was to be pleaded without witness? I have not, if thou hast. I
will see thy noble master ere he depart, not now; thou wilt, I trust me,
take him better comfort than I could."

He lifted the hangings as he spoke, and the boy passed in, his heart
beating well-nigh to suffocation as he did so. It was in a small
compartment leading to the principal chamber of the tent he found
himself at first, and Sir Nigel was not there. With a fleet, yet
noiseless movement, he drew aside the massive curtain, let it fall again
behind him, and stood unperceived in the presence of him he sought.

The brow of Sir Nigel rested on his hand, his attitude was as one bowed
and drooping 'neath despondency; the light of the taper fell full upon
his head, bringing it out in beautiful profile. It was not his capture
alone which had made him thus, the boy felt and knew; the complicated
evils which attended his king and country in his imprisonment were yet
not sufficient to crush that spirit to the earth. It was some other
anxiety, some yet nearer woe; there had been many strange rumors afloat,
both of Sir Nigel's bridal and the supposed fate of that bride, and the
boy, though he knew them false, aye, and that the victim of Jean Roy was
a young attendant of Agnes, who had been collecting together the
trinkets of her mistress, to save them from the pillage which would
attend the conquest of the English, and had been thus mistaken by the
maniac--the boy, we say, though