“He is dead, fair mistress.”

“Living or dead, I am yet his,” answered Joan unfalteringly; “and were I as free as air —­ had I never pledged my faith to him —­ I should yet have none other answer for you.  Think you that your evil deeds have not been whispered in mine ear?  Think you that this imprisonment in which you think fit to keep me is like to win my heart?”

“Nay, sweetest lady, call it not by that harsh name.  Could a princess have been better served or tended than you have been ever since you came beneath my humble roof?  It is no imprisonment; it is but the watchful care of one who loves you, and would fain save you from the peril into which you had recklessly plunged.  Lady, had you known the dangers of travel in these wild and lawless days, you never would have left the shelter of your father’s house with but one attendant to protect you.  Think you that those peerless charms could ever have been hidden beneath the dress of a peasant lad?  Well was it for you, lady, that your true love was first to follow and find you, ere some rude fellow had betrayed the secret to his fellows, and striven to turn it to their advantage.  Here you are safe; and I have sent to your father to tell him you are found and are secure.  He, too, is searching for you; but soon he will receive my message, and will come hastening hither.  Then will our marriage be solemnized with all due rites.  Your obstinate resistance will avail nothing to hinder our purpose.  But I would fain win this lovely hand by gentle means; and it will be better for thee, Joan Vavasour, to lay down thine arms and surrender while there is yet time.”

There was a distinct accent of menace in the last words, and the underlying expression upon that smiling face was evil and threatening in the extreme.  But Joan’s eyes did not falter beneath the searching gaze of her would-be husband.  Her face was set in lines of fearless resolution.  She still wore the rough blue homespun tunic of a peasant lad, and her chestnut locks hung in heavy natural curls about her shoulders.  The distinction in dress between the sexes was much less marked in those days than it has since become.  Men of high degree clothed themselves in flowing robes, and women of humble walk in life in short kirtles; whilst the tunic was worn by boys and girls alike, though there was a difference in the manner of the wearing, and it was discarded by the girl in favour of a longer robe or sweeping supertunic with the approach of womanhood.  In the lower ranks of life, however, the difference in dress between boy and girl was nothing very distinctive; and the disguise had been readily effected by Joan, who had only to cut somewhat shorter her flowing locks, clothe herself in the homespun tunic and leather gaiters of a peasant boy, and place a cloth cap jauntily on her flowing curls before she was transformed into as pretty a lad as one could wish to see.

With the old henchman Nat to play the part of father, she had journeyed fearlessly forth, and had made for the coast, which she would probably have reached in safety had it not been for the acuteness of Peter Sanghurst, who had guessed her purpose, had dogged her steps with the patient sagacity of a bloodhound, and had succeeded in the end in capturing his prize, and in bringing her back in triumph to Basildene.