t there was
none, nor none need he have feared, since whilst he rode through the
cold night, Gregory Ashburn slept as peacefully as a man may with the
fever and an evil conscience, and imagined his dutiful daughter safely
abed.

With the first streaks of steely light came a thin rain to heighten
Crispin's discomfort, for of late he had been overmuch in the saddle,
and strong though he was, he was yet flesh and blood, and subject to
its ills. Towards ten o'clock they passed through Denham. When they were
clear of it Cynthia put her head from the window. She had slept well,
and her mood was lighter and happier. As Crispin rode a yard or so
behind, he caught sight of her fresh, smiling face, and it affected him
curiously. The tenderness that two days ago had been his as he talked
to her upon the cliffs was again upon him, and the thought that anon she
would be linked to him by the ties of relationship, was pleasurable.
She gave him good morrow prettily, and he, spurring his horse to the
carriage door, was solicitous to know of her comfort. Nor did he again
fall behind until Stafford was reached at noon. Here, at the sign of the
Suffolk Arms, he called a halt, and they broke their fast on the best
the house could give them.

Cynthia was gay, and so indeed was Crispin, yet she noted in him that
coolness which she accounted restraint, and gradually her spirits sank
again before it.

To Crispin's chagrin there were no horses to be had. Someone in great
haste had ridden through before them, and taken what relays the hostelry
could give, leaving four jaded beasts in the stable. It seemed, indeed,
that they must remain there until the morrow, and in coming to that
conclusion, Sir Crispin's temper suffered sorely.

"Why need it put you so about," cried Cynthia, in arch reproach, "since
I am with you?"

"Blood and fire, madam," roared Galliard, "it is precisely for that
reason that I am exercised. What if your father came upon us here?"

"My father, sir, is abed with a sword-wound and a fever," she replied,
and he remembered then how Kenneth had spitted Gregory through the
shoulder.

"Still," he returned, "he will have discovered your flight, and I dare
swear we shall have his myrmidons upon our heels. Should they come up
with us we shall hardly find them more gentle than he would be."

She paled at that, and for a second there was silence. Then her hand
stole forth upon his arm, and she looked at him with tightened lips