ighting enough to
keep it in countenance."

At this I was brought down to some consideration of the present and its
demands. As fortune's wheel had twirled, I had my life, to be sure; but
by the having of it was made the basest traitor to my friend--to
Jennifer, and no whit less to Margery.

'Twas out of any thought that I should take the field against the common
enemy, leaving this tangled web of mystery and misery behind. In
sheerest decency I owed it first to Jennifer to make a swift and frank
confession of the ill-concluded tale of happenings. That done, I owed it
equally to him and Margery to find some way to set aside the midnight
marriage.

So I fell back upon my wound for an excuse, telling the captain that I
was not yet fit to take the field--which was true enough. Whereupon he
and his men set me well beyond the danger of immediate pursuit and we
parted company.

When I was left alone I had no plan that reached beyond the day's end.
Since to go to Jennifer House by daylight would be to run my neck afresh
into the noose, I saw nothing for it but to lie in hiding till
nightfall. The hiding place that promised best was the old hunting lodge
in the forest, and thitherward I turned my face.

It was a wise man who said that he who goes with heavy heart drags
heavy feet as well; but while I live I shall remember how that saying
clogged the path for me that morning, making the shrub-sweet summer air
grow thick and lifeless as I toiled along. For sober second thought, and
the unnerving reaction which comes upon the heels of some sharp peril
overpast, left me aghast at the coil in which a tricky fate had
entangled me.

The second thought made plain the dispiteous hardness of it all, showing
me how I had reasoned like a boy in planning for retrieval. Would
Jennifer believe my tale, though I should swear it out word for word on
the Holy Evangelists? I doubted it; and striving to see it through his
eyes, was made to doubt it more. For death should have been my
justifier, and death had played me false.

As for setting the midnight marriage aside, I made sure the lawyer tribe
could find a way, if that were all. But here there was a loyal daughter
of the Church to reckon with. Loathing her bonds, as any true-hearted
maiden must, would Margery consent to have them broken by the law? I
knew well she would not. Though our poor knotting of the tie had been
little better than a tragic farce, it lacked nothing of force to b