The lady had a small but sufficient retinue; but it was considered rather strange that she should not start until the dusk had begun to gather round the castle, so that the confusion of the start was a good deal increased from the darkness which was stealing upon the place.  Had there been much time or attention free, it might have been noted by a keen observer that Lady Gertrude had added to her personal attendants one who looked like a tall and stout woman, though her hood was so closely drawn that her face was seen by none of the warders, who, however, let her pass unchallenged:  for she rode beside her mistress, and was evidently in the position of a trusted companion; for the lady was speaking to her as they passed out through the gate, and there could certainly be no reason for offering any obstruction to any servant of hers.

If there were any fear or excitement in Gertrude’s breast as she and her husband passed out of the gate and rode quickly along the path which led through the town, she did not betray it by look or gesture.  Her eagerness was mainly showed by a desire to push on northward as fast as possible, and the light of a full harvest moon made travelling almost as easy as by day.  On they rode, by sleeping hamlets and dreaming pastures, until the lights of Windsor lay twinkling in the dim, hazy distance miles away.

Then Gertrude suddenly threw back her hood, and leaning towards her companion —­ they two had outridden their followers some time before —­ cried in a strange, tense voice: 

“O Wendot husband, thou art free!  Tomorrow will see us safe within those halls of which thou art rightful lord.  Captivity, trouble, peril is at an end.  Nothing can greatly hurt us now, for are we not one in bonds that no man may dissever?”

“My noble, true-hearted wife,” said Wendot, in accents of intense feeling; and then he leaned forward and kissed her in the whispering wood, and they rode forward through the glades of silvery moonlight towards the new life that was awaiting them beyond.

“Hills, wild rocks, woods, and water!” cried Wendot, with a sudden kindling gleam in his eyes.  “O Gertrude, thou didst not tell me the half!  I never guessed that England had aught so like home as this.  Truly it might be Dynevor itself —­ that brawling torrent, those craggy fells, and these gray stone walls.  And to be free —­ free to breathe the fresh wind, to go where the fancy prompts, to be loosed from all control save the sweet bonds that thou boldest me in, dearest!  Ah, my wife, thou knowest not what thou hast done for me.  How shall I thank thee for the boon?”

“Why, by being thine old self again, Vychan,” said Gertrude, who was standing by her husband’s side on a natural terrace of rock above the Hall which was to be their home.  She had brought him out early in the morning to see the sun rise upon their home, and the rapture of his face, the passionate joy she saw written there, was more than she had hoped for.