aud, Maud, come to me; let me hold your hand once more." The sound of
that feeble pleading voice brought back Maud's bewildered senses.
"Harry," she gasped, "Oh, my Harry!" and she was kneeling by the low
bed, kissing the thin white hands.

[Illustration: MEETING OF MAUD AND HARRY.]

For a few minutes no one came near them, and Maud knelt there sobbing,
for her overstrained feelings would have vent, in spite of her effort to
control them.

Harry was the first to regain composure, and smoothing the soft braids
of her hair, he said, "I began to fear you would never forgive me, Maud;
and I could not die without your forgiveness."

"Forgive you!" repeated Maud. "I have wanted to ask you to forgive me
for speaking as I did the morning you went away."

"I have nothing to forgive," said Harry. "You could not but believe I
was a traitor, as you said, in refusing to serve the King."

"Nay, nay, but I ought to have believed you were acting conscientiously,
although I could not see things as you saw them. I was hard,
uncharitable, cruel, Harry."

"Nay, nay, Maud; cruel, when at Oxford you saved my life?"

"I did not know it was to save you," murmured Maud.

Harry looked disappointed, and dropped the hand he was holding. "Maud,
when I saw you there, riding through the soldiers, I thought it was for
me you came, although you had given your heart and hand to another."

Maud stared. "Given heart and hand to another!" she repeated.

"Hush! hush!" said Harry, "my secret shall die with me. I would not even
ask about you when I came here, but suffer me to call you Maud the
little while I stay."

"What other name should I be called?" asked Maud, in surprise.

"Nay, nay, I cannot play now, Maud," said Harry, "I would not even
suffer a word to be spoken about you until I heard Captain Stanhope and
his wife were coming from Oxford, and then I roused myself to write that
letter, for I longed to see you once again, as the companion of my
childhood and the friend----"

"Prithee, I have received no letter," said Maud.

"Marry, but I sent one, and the messenger said he had delivered it into
the hand of Mistress Stanhope herself," said Harry.

"But I am not Mistress Stanhope," said Maud, smiling.

Harry raised himself in bed, and looked earnestly into her face. "You
are not the wife of Captain Stanhope?" he repeated.

"No, it is Mary who is married," said Maud.

Harry fell back on his pillow, and Roger and Dame Coppins were ob