第48章

The outlaw had scarce passed out of sight upon the road to Derby ere the girl, who still stood in an embrasure of the south tower, gazing with strangely drawn, sad face up the road which had swallowed him, saw a body of soldiers galloping rapidly toward Tany from the south.

The King's banner waved above their heads, and intuitively, Joan de Tany knew for whom they sought at her father's castle.Quickly she hastened to the outer barbican that it might be she who answered their hail rather than one of the men-at-arms on watch there.

She had scarcely reached the ramparts of the outer gate ere the King's men drew rein before the castle.

In reply to their hail, Joan de Tany asked their mission.

"We seek the outlaw, Norman of Torn, who hides now within this castle,"replied the officer.

"There be no outlaw here," replied the girl, "but, if you wish, you may enter with half a dozen men and search the castle."This the officer did and, when he had assured himself that Norman of Torn was not within, an hour had passed, and Joan de Tany felt certain that the Outlaw of Torn was too far ahead to be caught by the King's men; so she said:

"There was one here just before you came who called himself though by another name than Norman of Torn.Possibly it is he ye seek.""Which way rode he ?" cried the officer.

"Straight toward the west by the middle road," lied Joan de Tany.And, as the officer hurried from the castle and, with his men at his back, galloped furiously away toward the west, the girl sank down upon a bench, pressing her little hands to her throbbing temples.

Then she opened the packet which Norman of Torn had handed her, and within found two others.In one of these was a beautiful jeweled locket, and on the outside were the initials JT, and on the inside the initials NT; in the other was a golden hair ornament set with precious stones, and about it was wound a strand of her own silken tresses.

She looked long at the little trinkets and then, pressing them against her lips, she threw herself face down upon an oaken bench, her lithe young form racked with sobs.

She was indeed but a little girl chained by the inexorable bonds of caste to a false ideal.Birth and station spelled honor to her, and honor, to the daughter of an English noble, was a mightier force even than love.

That Norman of Torn was an outlaw she might have forgiven, but that he was, according to report, a low fellow of no birth placed an impassable barrier between them.

For hours the girl lay sobbing upon the bench, whilst within her raged the mighty battle of the heart against the head.

Thus her mother found her, and kneeling beside her, and with her arms about the girl's neck, tried to soothe her and to learn the cause of her sorrow.

Finally it came, poured from the flood gates of a sorrowing heart; that wave of bitter misery and hopelessness which not even a mother's love could check.

"Joan, my dear daughter," cried Lady de Tany, "I sorrow with thee that thy love has been cast upon so bleak and impossible a shore.But it be better that thou hast learnt the truth ere it were too late; for, take my word upon it, Joan, the bitter humiliation such an alliance must needs have brought upon thee and thy father's house would soon have cooled thy love;nor could his have survived the sneers and affronts even the menials would have put upon him.""Oh, mother, but I love him so," moaned the girl."I did not know how much until he had gone, and the King's officer had come to search for him, and then the thought that all the power of a great throne and the mightiest houses of an entire kingdom were turned in hatred against him raised the hot blood of anger within me and the knowledge of my love surged through all my being.Mother, thou canst not know the honor, and the bravery, and the chivalry of the man as I do.Not since Arthur of Silures kept his round table hath ridden forth upon English soil so true a knight as Norman man of Torn.

"Couldst thou but have seen him fight, my mother, and witnessed the honor of his treatment of thy daughter, and heard the tone of dignified respect in which he spoke of women thou wouldst have loved him, too, and felt that outlaw though he be, he is still more a gentleman than nine-tenths the nobles of England.""But his birth, my daughter !" argued the Lady de Tany."Some even say that the gall marks of his brass collar still showeth upon his neck, and others that he knoweth not himself the name of his own father, nor had he any mother."Ah, but this was the mighty argument ! Naught could the girl say to justify so heinous a crime as low birth.What a man did in those rough cruel days might be forgotten and forgiven but the sins of his mother or his grandfather in not being of noble blood, no matter howsoever wickedly attained, he might never overcome or live down.

Torn by conflicting emotions, the poor girl dragged herself to her own apartment and there upon a restless, sleepless couch, beset by wild, impossible hopes, and vain, torturing regrets, she fought out the long, bitter night; until toward morning she solved the problem of her misery in the only way that seemed possible to her poor, tired, bleeding, little heart.When the rising sun shone through the narrow window, it found Joan de Tany at peace with all about her; the carved golden hilt of the toy that had hung at her girdle protruded from her breast, and a thin line of crimson ran across the snowy skin to a little pool upon the sheet beneath her.

And so the cruel hand of a mighty revenge had reached out to crush another innocent victim.