But Wendot was mending now; there was no doubt of ultimate recovery.  He would rise from his sickbed to find —­ what?  Griffeth had not dared to ask himself this question before; but now a great hope possessed him suddenly.  He looked into Alphonso’s eyes, and the two instantly understood one another; as did also Gertrude and Joanna, who stood by flushed and quivering.

“Let it be so,” said Griffeth, in a voice which trembled a little, although the words were firm and emphatic.  “I take the name the king has given me.  I am Wendot, whom he believes the traitor and the foe.  Griffeth lies yonder, sick and helpless, a victim to the influence of the first-born son of Res Vychan.  It may be, when the king hears more of him, he will in his clemency release and pardon him.

“Ah, if I could but be the means of saving my brother —­ the brother dearer to me than life —­ from the fate which others have brought upon him, that I could lay down my life without a wish ungratified!  It has been the only thought of bitterness in my cup that I must leave him alone —­ and a prisoner.”

Gertrude’s face had flushed a deep red; she put out her hand and clasped that of Griffeth hard; there was a little sob in her voice as she said: 

“Oh, if you will but save him —­ if you will but save him!”

Griffeth looked into her sweet face, with its sensitive features and soft eyes shining through a mist of tears, and he understood something which had hitherto been a puzzle to him.

There had been days when the intermittent fever from which Wendot suffered left him entirely for hours together, sometimes for a whole day; and Griffeth had been sure that on some of these days, in the hours of his own attendance on the prince, his brother had received visits from others in the castle:  for flowers had appeared to brighten the sick room, and there had been a wonderful new look of happiness in the patient’s eyes, although he had said nothing to his brother as to what had befallen him.

And in truth Wendot was half disposed to believe himself the victim of some sweet hallucination, and was almost afraid to speak of the fancies that floated from time to time before his eyes, lest he should be told that his mind was wandering, and that he was the victim of delusion.

Not once alone, but many times, during the hours of his tardy convalescence, when he had been lying alone, crushed by the sense of weariness and oppression which illness brings to one so little accustomed to it, he had been roused by the sound of light footfalls in his room; he had seen a graceful form flitting about, bringing lightness and beauty in her wake, and leaving it behind when she left.  The vision of a sweet, small face, and the lustrous dark eyes which had haunted him at intervals through the long years of his young manhood, appeared again before him, and sometimes his name was spoken in the gentle tones which had never been forgotten, although the memory was growing dim.