t Square, he took the
remains of the great fire at a leap. He had but one thought. The Jew had
stolen the child; therefore, to find the Jew.

In the blackest of the night he found him, sitting by the road, bent
over his staff. The eyes he raised to Charles were haggard and weary.
Charles reined his horse back on his haunches, his men-at-arms behind
him.

"What have you done with the child?"

"The child?"

"Out with it," cried Charles and flung himself from his horse. If the
Jew were haggard, Charles was more so, hard bitten of terror, pallid to
the lips.

"I have seen no child. That is--" He hastened to correct himself, seeing
Charles' face in the light of a torch. "I was released by a child, a
girl. I have not seen her since."

He spoke with the simplicity of truth. In the light of the torches
Charles' face went white.

"She released you?" he repeated slowly. "What did she say?"

"She said: 'It is the birthday of our Lord,'" repeated the Jew, slowly,
out of his weary brain. "'And I am doing a good deed.'"

"Is that all?" The Jew hesitated.

"Also she said: 'But you do not love our Lord.'"

Charles swore under his breath. "And you?"

"I said but little. I--"

"What did you say?"

"I said that her Lord was also a Jew." He was fearful of giving offence,
so he hastened to add: "It was by way of comforting the child. Only
that, my lord."

"She said nothing else?" The _seigneur's_ voice was dangerously calm.

The Jew faltered. He knew the gossip of the town.

"She said--she said she wished two things, my lord. To become a boy
and--to see her mother."

Then Charles lifted his face to where the stars were growing dim before
the uprising of the dawn, and where, as far away as the eye could reach
and as far again, lay the castle of his cousin Philip of the Black
Beard. And the rage was gone out of his eyes. For suddenly he knew that,
on that feast of mother and child, Clotilde had gone to her mother, as
unerringly as an arrow to its mark.

And with the rage died all the passion and pride. In the eyes that had
gazed at Joan over the parapet, and that now turned to the east, there
was reflected the dawning of a new day.

* * * * *

The castle of Philip the Black lay in a plain. For as much as a mile in
every direction the forest had been sacrificed against the loving
advances of his cousin Charles. Also about the castle was a moat in
which swam noisy geese and much litter