Bertrand was astir next morning, with the reconciliation of yesterday still vividly before his mind. He began to dress and to arm himself, sitting on the edge of the bed in his room in one of the turrets, his hands dawdling at their work as though their master were too much enthralled by the importunity of his own thoughts. He had been moved by the sudden surrender of his mother’s pride, and the element of shame in her recantation had roused in him a new instinct of tenderness, a tenderness that overflowed perhaps from a subtle and more human source. The indifference of years had been broken by a few halting, yet inevitable, words. Bertrand had given Jeanne du Guesclin no idle promise. He would turn his horse’s head towards Cancale that very day.

Bertrand could hear Hopart and Guicheaux talking together in the little anteroom that opened from the turret stair. The fellows had lain like a couple of dogs outside his door, happy in the promise that he had given them that they should be his men from that day forth. The murmur of their voices came up to Bertrand as he armed, bringing back many a wild memory of wild nights spent on the moors and in the woods.

He buckled on his arm-pieces, using teeth and hands to clinch the straps, and, picking up his sword, went to the turret window and looked out. A thin mist hung over the meadows and the woods, a mist shot through like some silvery cloth with the gold threads of the morning sun. Above the haze the tops of the aspen-trees glimmered towards the deepening blue, and the jackdaws, whose nests were in the tall chimneys, were croaking and wheeling about the castle.

From the turret window Bertrand could see into the garden, where the mist clung about the orchard trees and dimmed the pool where the water-lilies spread their cups of ivory and of gold. Early though it was, TiphaÏne walked in the garden, with the Vicomte’s dog following at her heels. Bertrand had hoped for some such chance of speaking to her alone before he sallied to Cancale.

“Saddle the horses in an hour,” he said, as he passed Hopart and Guicheaux on the stairs and went clashing down in his well-worn harness. The men watched him down the first gray curve of the winding stair, silent, whimsical, mysteriously wise. Hopart nodded; Guicheaux bobbed his hatchet face in turn. A long, red tongue darted out momentarily between a thin and humorous pair of lips.

“The captain has it, God bless him.”

Hopart looked solemn.

“And something of a scold, too!”

Guicheaux’s bright eyes were dull suddenly, as though he were thinking of the Aspen Tower in far Broceliande, and of the grim happenings there that had shocked even his war-hardened soul.

“The devil’s in the women,” he said, with reflection, “and yet—not the devil, brother Hopart, for the devil, I guess, would never have bearded the captain and made him humble, as she did, in Broceliande.”

Hopart nodded.

“A brave lady.”

“Our Lord keep them”—and the rascal crossed himself with the gravity of a fanatic—“she’s just the captain’s match, just as stout in the heart as he. I’ll wager she’s waiting for him in the garden.”

The giant chuckled.

“If she’s a lady of sense.”

“Which she is. Come up; we’ll peep.”

And in they went to the window of the turret-room, and by the affectionate grin on Hopart’s face it was plain that Guicheaux’s prophecy had not flown wide.

TiphaÏne and Bertrand were standing beside the pool, she in her green gown with the violets thereon, he in his harness, belted and spurred for the road to the sea. He had told her the preceding night of the last melting of his mother’s pride. TiphaÏne had known, when she rose with the dawn, that Bertrand was leaving La BelliÈre for Cancale that morning.

But it was not of his own home that Bertrand thought as he stood beside TiphaÏne in the mist-wrapped garden. Life had taken for him a deeper tone. No more would he be the free lance, the man of the moors, who fought like an outcast for the law of his own hand.

“So you will go to Cancale?”

She spoke softly, like one who thinks. Bertrand was standing with his shoulders squared, looking at the water, his arms crossed upon his breast.

“To Cancale, my old home.”

“And then—?”

“To the wars again.”

“It is always war with us.”

“It will always be war with us till the English are driven into the sea.”

“You will share—in that.”

“God helping me”—and he bowed his head—“and some day—”

He paused, a man weighing his words.

“Some day—I shall come to La BelliÈre again.”

He turned and looked at her, as though wondering whether the woman in her understood.

“Bertrand.”

She was gazing at the pool, with its floating lilies and the swallows skimming.

“Bertrand. My father is going towards the grave. He looks to me for a double love, now that Robin is no more his son. Can you blame me for remembering this?”

He looked at her honestly, and answered:

“No.”

They were standing close to each other, so close that Bertrand’s hand touched TiphaÏne’s arm.

“It is not easy to give up—all.”

She felt that he was trembling.

“Bertrand, I have one word for you.”

“And that word?”

“Wait.”

Her hand touched his. He held it, and stood looking down into her face.

“To serve you, honor you, to bide my time,” he said.

It was not the half-shamed face of a girl that he gazed at, but the inspired face of a brave woman.

“Bertrand, take troth from me; are you content?”

He threw his head back with a great intake of his breath.

“Content,” was all he answered.

From the turret window overhead Hopart and Guicheaux had drawn back with curiously stolid and solemn faces. It was as though each of these ragged sworders were attempting to disavow any trace of feeling by assuming a staring obtuseness that scorned anything so mawkish as sympathy with Bertrand and the lady. Hopart yawned behind his hand, looking at his comrade the while out of the corners of his slits of eyes.

“Borrowed that grease-pot, brother?” he asked, abruptly, as though fixing on a sufficiently unemotional topic.

Guicheaux stared. He was not without sentiment.

“Grease-pot?”

“For the captain’s stirrup leathers; they’re stiff as boards. I told you to get it from the cook, eh?”

“Wipe them round your neck, brother,” said the thin man; “’twill serve.”

Hopart yawned again, and glanced reflectively towards his stomach.

“Honest service once more,” he said, with a fat and complacent sigh; “a roof over a man’s head, and clean straw to lie in; good food and plenty. Brother, I have pricked two holes to let out my belt.”

It was the distant braying of a trumpet and the floating-up of a haze of dust among the poplar-trees on the Dinan road where the mist had cleared that brought the alert, hawklike glint back into Guicheaux’s eyes. He rested his elbows on the window-sill and craned his head forward, his mouth open as though it helped him to take in sound.

“Hst!”

Hopart leaned his hands on Guicheaux’s shoulders and flattened the thin man against the wall as he peered out in turn.

“Trumpets and banners, God a mercy!”

Guicheaux gave an expostulatory heave.

“Push me through the wall, hogshead! Eyes alive, but here’s a brave show—pennons by the score.”

Hopart’s heavy breathing grew yet heavier as he craned his head forward over Guicheaux’s shoulder.

“The Ermine, the Ermine, or I’m a bat!”

“Beaumanoir! Beaumanoir!”

“All for the love of the captain, I’ll swear. All the cats in Brittany coming to purr and rub against his legs.”

Guicheaux, in his excitement, continued to heave Hopart back a little, and to draw himself up so that he lay like a bolster doubled over the sill.

“Beaumanoir! Bully Beaumanoir, by God’s grace! Phew!”

He kicked out suddenly and began to writhe and wriggle under Hopart’s weight.

“Get back, great fool! Let me in.”

“What ails you, little one?”

“The captain!” And Guicheaux spluttered. “Get off my legs, oaf. He’ll break my head.”

Hopart’s obtuseness seemed as bulky as his body.

“What’s the captain doing, eh?”

Guicheaux cursed him, and contrived to squeeze back into the room.

“Was not madame there, fool?” he asked, looking hot and flattened.

“Madame?”

“Yes.”

And Guicheaux smacked his lips on the back of his hand.