“May I not go with thee to tell the news to Griffeth?”

“Ay, well bethought,” said Alphonso, who was leaning on Wendot’s other arm, the distance through the long passages being somewhat fatiguing to him.  “Let us go and show to him thy wife.  None will rejoice more than he to know that she is thine in very truth, and that none can take her from thee.”

Griffeth’s room was nigh at hand, and thither Wendot led his bride.  A taper was burning beside the bed, and the sick youth lay propped up with pillows, his breath coming in laboured gasps, though his eyes were bright and full of comprehension as Wendot led the slim, white-robed figure to his side.

But the elder brother was startled at the change he saw in his patient since he had left him last.  There was something in his look that struck chill upon his heart.  He came forward and took the feeble hand in his.  It was deadly cold, and the unearthly radiance upon the lad’s face was as significant in its own way.  Had not their mother looked at them with just such a smile when she had slipped away into another world, whilst they were trying to persuade themselves that she was better?

“My sister Gertrude,” whispered Griffeth.  “Oh, I am so happy!  You will be good to him —­ you will comfort him.

“Wendot —­ Gertrude —­” he made a faint effort, and joined their hands together; and then, as if his last earthly task was accomplished, he seemed to look right on beyond them, whilst a strange expression of awe and wonder shone from his closing eyes.

“Howel,” he whispered —­ “father —­ mother —­ oh, I am coming!  Take me with you.”

Then the head fell backwards, the light vanished from the eyes, the cold hand fell nervelessly from Wendot’s grasp, and they knew that Griffeth was the king’s prisoner no longer.

Three days later the Lady Gertrude Cherleton said farewell to her royal companions, and started forth for her own estates in Derbyshire, which she had purposed for some time to visit.  Perhaps had the minds of those in the castle been free to wonder at anything so trivial as the movements of the young heiress, they would have felt surprise at her selecting this time to betake herself to a solitary and independent existence, away from all her friends and playmates; but the mortal illness of the Prince Alphonso occupied the whole attention of the castle.  The remains of the so-called Wendot, late of Dynevor, had been laid to rest with little ceremony and no pomp, and the very existence of the other brother was almost forgotten in the general dismay and grief which permeated through all ranks of people both within and without the castle walls.