ting, and all that day the
workmen were busy erecting the lists in the great quadrangle upon which,
as was said before, looked the main buildings of the castle. The windows
of Myles's apartment opened directly upon the bustling scene--the
carpenters hammering and sawing, the upholsterers snipping, cutting,
and tacking. Myles and Gascoyne stood gazing out from the open casement,
with their arms lying across one another's shoulders in the old boyhood
fashion, and Myles felt his heart shrink with a sudden tight pang as
the realization came sharply and vividly upon him that all these
preparations were being made for him, and that the next day he should,
with almost the certainty of death, meet either glory or failure under
the eyes not only of all the greater and lesser castle folk, but of the
King himself and noble strangers critically used to deeds of chivalry
and prowess. Perhaps he had never fully realized the magnitude of the
reality before. In that tight pang at his heart he drew a deep breath,
almost a sigh. Gascoyne turned his head abruptly, and looked at his
friend, but he did not ask the cause of the sigh. No doubt the same
thoughts that were in Myles's mind were in his also.

It was towards the latter part of the afternoon that a message came from
the Earl, bidding Myles attend him in his private closet. After Myles
had bowed and kissed his lordship's hand, the Earl motioned him to
take a seat, telling him that he had some final words to say that might
occupy a considerable time. He talked to the young man for about half
an hour in his quiet, measured voice, only now and then showing a little
agitation by rising and walking up and down the room for a turn or two.
Very many things were disclosed in that talk that had caused Myles
long hours of brooding thought, for the Earl spoke freely, and without
concealment to him concerning his father and the fortunes of the house
of Falworth.

Myles had surmised many things, but it was not until then that he knew
for a certainty who was his father's malignant and powerful enemy--that
it was the great Earl of Alban, the rival and bitter enemy of the Earl
of Mackworth. It was not until then that he knew that the present Earl
of Alban was the Lord Brookhurst, who had killed Sir John Dale in
the anteroom at Falworth Castle that morning so long ago in his early
childhood. It was not until then that he knew all the circumstances of
his father's blindness; that he had been overt