ly to the gates, walked through the town--
stopped every moment by demands for news--till at last the Castle was
reached, and in the base court they alighted from their exhausted
steeds. And then up-stairs, to Constance's bower, occupied by herself,
the Dowager, little Richard, and Maude. Bertram hurriedly preceded his
master into the room. The ladies, who were quietly seated at work, and
were evidently ignorant of any cause for excitement, looked up in
surprise at his entrance.

"Please it the Lady,--the Lord!"

Constance rose quickly, with a more decided welcome than she usually
vouchsafed to her husband.

"Why, my Lord! I thought you were in London."

"What ill hath happed, son?" was the more penetrating remark of the
Dowager.

"Well nigh all such as could hap, Madam," said Le Despenser wearily. "I
am escaped with life--if I have so 'scaped!--but with nought else. And
I come now, only to look on your beloved faces, and to bid farewell.--
Maybe a last farewell, my Lady!"

He stood looking into her face with his dark, sad eyes,--looking as if
he believed indeed that it would be a last farewell. Constance was
startled; and his mother's theories broke down at once, and she sobbed
out in an agony--

"O Tom, Tom! My lad, my last one!"

"You mean it, my Lord?" asked Constance, in a tone which showed that she
was not wholly indifferent to the question.

"I mean it right sadly, my Lady."

"But you go not hence this moment?"

Le Despenser sank down on the settle like the exhausted man he was.

"This moment!" he repeated. "Nay, not so, even for life. I am weary
and worn beyond measure. And to part so soon! One night to rest; and
then!--"

"My Lord, are you well assured of your peril?" suggested Constance.
"This your castle is strong and good, and your serving-men and retainers
many, and the townsmen leal--"

She stopped, tacitly answered by her husband's sorrowful smile, which so
plainly replied, "_Cui bono_?"

"My Lady!" he said quietly, "think ye there is this moment a tower, or a
noble, or a rood of land, that the Duke of Lancaster will leave unto us?
I cast no doubt that all our lands and goods be forfeit, some days ere
now."

He judged truly enough. On the day of the fugitives' flight from Oxford
to Cirencester, a writ of confiscation was issued in Parliament against
every one of them. That was the 5th of January; and this was the
evening of the 10th. There was a mournful rear-supper at