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“I want breath, that is all; they pressed us hard, there, at Goldspur; we broke through, and I ran for the hills. You must go, Denise, to-night; make for one of the coast towns. I can look to myself.”

He was at the end of his strength, however, for all his hardihood, with a sword cut through the shoulder, an arrow broken in his thigh. Denise could see nothing of all this, but she knew that he could hardly stand. Moreover, he had struggled up into the wood to warn her, and her heart was the heart of a woman though the people called her a saint.

Looking back over her shoulder she saw tongues of yellow flame rising from Goldspur in the valley. Gaillard’s men had set fire to the place. The glow from it caught Aymery’s eyes as he stood, swaying at the knees, great sickness upon him, even his wrath feeble in him because of his wounds and his weariness.

“They have lit me a torch to travel by,” he said bitterly.

Denise was shading her eyes with her hand. She turned swiftly upon Aymery, for she had seen mounted men moving on the hillside between her, and the burning house.