The uncle was absent from home on the King’s business.  The two cousins had the house to themselves.  They had established themselves beside the glowing hearth within their favourite room containing all the books, when the horn at the gate announced the arrival of some guest, and a message was brought to John saying that Mistress Joan Vavasour was even then dismounting from her palfrey, and was about to pay him a visit.

“Nay now, but this is a lucky hap!” cried John, as he went forward to be ready to meet his guest.

The next moment the light footfall along the polished boards of the anteroom announced the coming of the lady, and Raymond’s eager eyes were fixed upon a face so fair that he gazed and gazed and could not turn his eyes away.

Mistress Joan was just his own age —­ not yet seventeen —­ yet she had something of the grace and dignity of womanhood mingling with the fresh sweet frankness of the childhood that had scarcely passed.  Her eyes were large and dark, flashing, and kindling with every passing gust of feeling; her delicate lips, arched like a Cupid’s bow, were capable of expressing a vast amount of resolution, though now relaxed into a merry smile of greeting.  She was rather tall and at present very slight, though the outlines of her figure were softly rounded, and strength as well as grace was betrayed in every swift eager motion.  She held John’s hands and asked eagerly after his well-being.

“It was but two days ago I heard that you lay sick at Guildford, and I have been longing ever since for tidings.  Today my father had business in the town, and I humbly sued him to let me ride with him, and rest, whilst he went his own way, in the hospitable house of your good uncle.  This is how I come to be here today.  And now tell me of thyself these many months, for I hear no news at Woodcrych.  And who is this fair youth with thee?  Methinks his face is strange to me, though he bears a look of the De Brocas, too.”

A quick flush mounted in Raymond’s cheek; but John only called him by the name by which he was known to the world, and Mistress Joan spoke no more of the fancied likeness.  She and John, who were plainly well acquainted, plunged at once into eager talk; and it was not long before the question of Joan’s own marriage was brought up, and he plainly asked her if the news was true which gave her in wedlock to Peter Sanghurst.

A change came over Joan’s face at those words.  A quick gleam shot out of her dark eyes.  She set her teeth, and her face suddenly hardened as if carved in flint.  Her voice, which had been full of rippling laughter before, now fell to a lower pitch, and she spoke with strange force and gravity.