, I sprang up, wheeled, and
caught it by the wrist.

A moment's fierce struggle, and I had the dagger in my own hand and
the man at my mercy. The fire upon the hearth seized on a pine knot and
blazed up brightly, filling the room with light. "Diccon!" I cried, and
dropped my arm.

I had never thought of this. The room was very quiet as, master and man,
we stood and looked each other in the face. He fell back to the wall and
leaned against it, breathing heavily; into the space between us the past
came thronging.

I opened my hand and let the dagger drop to the floor. "I suppose that
this was because of last night," I said. "I shall never strike you
again."

I went to the table, and sitting down leaned my forehead upon my hand.
It was Diccon who would have done this thing! The fire crackled on the
hearth as had crackled the old camp fires in Flanders; the wind outside
was the wind that had whistled through the rigging of the Treasurer,
one terrible night when we lashed ourselves to the same mast and never
thought to see the morning. Diccon!

Upon the table was the minister's inkhorn and pen. I drew my tablets
from the breast of my doublet and began to write. "Diccon!" I called,
without turning, when I had finished.

He came slowly forward to the table, and stood beside it with hanging
head. I tore the leaf from the book and pushed it over to him. "Take
it," I ordered.

"To the commander?" he asked. "I am to take it to the commander?"

I shook my head. "Read it."

He stared at it vacantly, turning it now this way, now that.

"Did you forget how to read when you forgot all else?" I said sternly.

He read, and the color rushed into his face.

"It is your freedom," I said. "You are no longer man of mine. Begone,
sirrah!"

He crumpled the paper in his hand. "I was mad," he muttered.

"I could almost believe it," I replied. "Begone!"

After a moment he went. Sitting still in my place, I heard him heavily
and slowly leave the room, descend the step at the door, and go out into
the night.

A door opened, and Mistress Jocelyn Percy came into the great room, like
a sunbeam strayed back to earth. Her skirt was of flowered satin, her
bodice of rich taffeta; between the gossamer walls of her French ruff
rose the whitest neck to meet the fairest face. Upon her dark hair sat,
as lightly as a kiss, a little pearl-bordered cap. A color was in her
cheeks and a laugh on her lips. The rosy light of the burning pine
care