By and by it burst open, and Wilfred stood in the doorway.

“Mother, hast thou seen any one pass this way?  The Normans have been in the hamlet:  we have slain all but one, and he, the worst of all, has escaped us.”

“Canst thou not spare even one poor life?”

“Nay, it is Etienne, son of the old fiend Hugo; besides, once safe off, he would betray our secret before we are ready for action.”

“I cannot help thee in thy chase; thou knowest how I hate and shrink from bloodshed, as did thy sainted mother.”

“Yes, but they did not shrink from poisoning her—­they whom she would not have harmed to save her own life.”

“God will avenge—­leave all to Him.”

“Nay, mother, we waste time; if thou hast not seen him, we go.”

“Hast thou seen my Eadwin?  He is generally here with the lark?”

Wilfred’s face changed; he stammered out some evasive reply, and dashed out to join the men and hounds, who were quite at fault; they had lost the scent far below, where Etienne entered the brook, and were diligently investigating, one by one, all the tracks that led from the morass.

Etienne had heard all, and his heart smote him.  From the language used, the words he had heard, he felt that this old woman must be the foster mother of his rival, and, if so, the mother of that very Eadwin he had so cruelly put to death the previous night; he quite understood Wilfred’s evasive reply.

His heart smote him, and he repented of this cruelty, at least:  he dreaded the moment when his preserver must learn the truth.  Would she then give him up?

What, too, did Wilfred mean by his allusion to poison?  Had he any grounds for such suspicion?  Poison was not an unknown agent amongst the Normans.  The great Duke himself had been suspected (doubtless wrongfully) of removing Conan of Brittany by its means.

But fatigue overcame him, and he slept.  And during that sleep symptoms of fever began to show themselves.  He began to talk in his dreams—­“There goes a fire—­avoid it, it is an evil spirit—­shoot arrows at it.  Make it tell the secret—­now we shall know about the swamp.  Here is a fiend throttling me—­oh, its awful eyes, they blaze like two marsh fires.  No, tie him to the wall; he shall tell the truth or die.  What are you giving me to drink?—­it is blood, blood.  You have poisoned me—­I burn, burn—­my veins are full of boiling lead—­my heart a boiling cauldron.  See, there are the marsh fiends—­they are carrying away Louis and Pierre—­their tails are as whips—­ah, an arrow through each of their arms will stop them.  Where is my armour?—­a hunting dress won’t stop their darts, or save one from their claws.  Oh, father, help me—­save me from the goblins.”

In this incoherent way he talked for hours, and the old dame shuddered as he confused the real tragedy of the previous night with imaginary terrors.  Oh, how awful were his ravings to her, when at last she learned the truth.  Yet in those very ravings he showed that remorse was at his heart.