“Jean!” cried Gaston, in his loud and hearty tones, the language of his home springing easily to his lips, though the English tongue was now the one in which his thoughts framed themselves.  “Good Jean, dost thou not know us?”

The beaming welcome on the miller’s face was answer enough in itself; and, indeed, he had time to give no other, for scarce had the words passed Gaston’s lips before there darted out from the open door of the house a light and fairy-like form, and a silvery cry of rapture broke from the lips of the winsome maiden, whilst Gaston leaped from his horse with a smothered exclamation, and in another moment the light fairy form seemed actually swallowed up in the embrace of those strong arms.

“Constanza my life —­ my love!”

“O Gaston, Gaston! can it in very truth be thou?”

Raymond looked on in mute amaze, turning his eyes from the lovers towards the miller, who was watching the encounter with a beaming face.

“What means it all?” asked the youth breathlessly.

“Marry, it means that the maiden has found her true knight,” answered Jean, all aglow with delight; but then, understanding better the drift of Raymond’s question, he turned his eyes upon him again, and said: 

“You would ask how she came hither?  Well, that is soon told.  It was one night nigh upon six months agone, and we had long been abed, when we heard a wailing sound beneath our windows, and Margot declared there was a maiden sobbing in the garden below.  She went down to see, and then the maid told her a strange, wild tale.  She was of the kindred of the Sieur de Navailles, she said, and was the betrothed wife of Gaston de Brocas; and as we knew somewhat of her tale through Father Anselm, who had heard of your captivity and rescue, we knew that she spoke the truth.  She said that since the escape, which had so perplexed the wicked lord, he had become more fierce and cruel than before, and that he seemed in some sort to suspect her, though of what she scarce knew.  She told us that his mind seemed to be deserting him, that she feared he was growing lunatic.  He was so fierce and wild at times that she feared for her own life.  She bore it as long as her maid, the faithful Annette, lived; but in the summer she fell sick of a fever, and died —­ the lady knew not if it were not poison that had carried her off —­ and a great terror seized her.  Not two days later, she fled from her gloomy home, and not knowing where else to hide her head, she fled hither, trusting that her lover would shortly come to free her from her uncle’s tyranny, as he had sworn, and believing that the home which had sheltered the infancy of the De Brocas brothers would give her shelter till that day came.”

“And you took her in and guarded her, and kept her safe from harm,” cried Raymond, grasping the hand of the honest peasant and wringing it hard.  “It was like you to do it, kind, good souls!  My brother will thank you, in his own fashion, for such service.  But I must thank you, too.  And where is Margot? for I trow she has been as a mother to the maid.  I would see her and thank her, for Gaston has no eyes nor ears for any one but his fair lady.”