ncess indeed.

A stir amongst the crowd, a murmur, and a craning of necks heralded the
approach of that other at whom the town gaped with admiration. He came
with his retinue of attendants, his pomp of dress, his arrogance of
port, his splendid beauty. Men looked from the beauty of the King's ward
to the beauty of the King's minion, from her costly silk to his velvet
and miniver, from the air of the court that became her well to the
towering pride and insolence which to the thoughtless seemed his
fortune's proper mantle, and deemed them a pair well suited, and the
King's will indeed the will of Heaven.

I was never one to value a man by his outward seeming, but suddenly I
saw myself as in a mirror,--a soldier, scarred and bronzed, acquainted
with the camp, but not with the court, roughened by a rude life, poor in
this world's goods, the first flush of youth gone forever. For a moment
my heart was bitter within me. The pang passed, and my hand tightened
its grasp upon the chair in which sat the woman I had wed. She was my
wife, and I would keep my own.

My lord had paused to speak to the Governor, who had risen to greet him.
Now he came toward us, and the crowd pressed and whispered. He bowed
low to Mistress Percy, made as if to pass on, then came to a stop before
her, his hat in his hand, his handsome head bent, a smile upon his
bearded lips.

"When was it that we last sat to see men bowl, lady?" he said. "I
remember a gay match when I bowled against my Lord of Buckingham, and
fair ladies sat and smiled upon us. The fairest laughed, and tied her
colors around my arm."

The lady whom he addressed sat quietly, with hands folded in her silken
lap and an untroubled face. "I did not know you then, my lord," she
answered him, quite softly and sweetly. "Had I done so, be sure I
would have cut my hand off ere it gave color of mine to"--"To whom?" he
demanded, as she paused.

"To a coward, my lord," she said clearly.

As if she had been a man, his hand went to his sword hilt. As for her,
she leaned back in her chair and looked at him with a smile.

He spoke at last, slowly and with deliberate emphasis. "I won then," he
said. "I shall win again, my lady,--my Lady Jocelyn Leigh."

I dropped my hand from her chair and stepped forward. "It is my wife
to whom you speak, my Lord Carnal," I said sternly. "I wait to hear you
name her rightly."

Rolfe rose from the grass and stood beside me, and Jeremy Sparrow,
shouldering a