as, and learn from one another;
and the time fled by only too fast, each day marked by a steady though
imperceptible improvement in Raymond's state of health, as his fine
constitution triumphed over the serious nature of the injury received.

Although he often thought of Basildene, he made no attempt to see the
place. The winter cold had set in with severity; John had little
disposition to face it, and quiet and rest were far more congenial to
him than any form of activity or amusement. John believed that the
Sanghursts were still there, engaged in their mysterious experiments
that savoured so strongly of magic. But after hearing of Raymond's bold
defiance of the implacable Peter in the forest near to the Brotherhood,
John was by no means desirous that the fact of Raymond's residence at
the Rectory of St. Nicholas should become known at Basildene. Without
sharing to the full the fears of the country people with regard to the
occult powers of the father and son in that lonely house, John believed
them to be as cruel and unscrupulous a pair as ever lived, even in those
half-civilized times. He therefore charged his servants to say nothing
of Raymond's visit, and hoped that it would not reach the ears of the
Sanghursts.

But there was another person towards whom Raymond's fancy had sometime
strayed during the years of his absence from Guildford, and this person
he was unaccountably shy of naming even to John, though he would have
been quite unable to allege a reason for his reticence.

But fortune favoured him in this as in other matters, for on entering
the library one day after a short stroll around the Rector's garden, he
found himself face to face with a radiant young creature dressed in the
picturesque riding gear of the day, who turned to him with a beaming
smile as she cried:

"Ah! I have been hearing of thee and of thy prowess, my fair young sir.
My good brother Alexander, who has followed the King's banner, would
gladly have been in thy place on the day of Crecy. Thou and thy brother
were amongst that gallant little band who fought around the Prince and
bore him off the field unhurt. Did not I say of thee that thou wouldst
quickly win thy knighthood's spurs? And thou mightest already have been
a belted knight if thy prudence and thy modesty had not been greater
than thine ambition. Is it not so?"

Raymond's face glowed like a child's beneath the praises of Mistress
Joan Vavasour, and the light of her bright e