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Denise let her work lie idle in her lap. She had had no fear of Aymery from the first, his face had become so familiar that it seemed part of the life round her, like the trees, or the hills, or the distant sea. Yet from the instant that he opened the wattle gate that morning, a sense of strangeness took hold of both of them. Each felt the change and wondered at it, so simple in its significance, and yet so strange. The shadow of a cloud lay over them for the first time. The more intimate hour had come when the man looked into the woman’s eyes and thought that thought which opens the eyes of the soul—“if any harm should befall her! If that dear head should suffer shame!”

“We have buried the boy,” he said. “That will be the beginning of a long tale.”

There was something satisfying about Aymery, a man who carried his head high, and looked fearlessly at the horizon. He had a quick yet quiet way with him had Aymery of Goldspur. Shirkers and cowards were afraid of those grey eyes of his, for they were not the eyes of a man to be trifled with or fooled.