“You have not told us all,” exclaimed Crowleigh.  “Manners would never leave his host in so graceless a style, I know.”

“Have I not told thee the truth, Sir George?” De la Zouch meekly appealed, “and do not these rents and scars bear me out?  ’Tis a pretty reward for a noble fight is this,” and he finished with a sigh of profound discontent.

“I believe thee,” returned the baron slowly, to whom the evidence of the torn garments and De la Zouch’s wounds appeared irresistible.

“And was not my poor horse lamed by the miscreants, who would have killed it outright had I not interposed myself?” continued Sir Henry.  “Are all these things to count as naught, and is not the absence of the lovers itself sufficient proof?  What more do you require?  What have you to disprove these things?  Why should you doubt me?” and he looked round in triumph, feeling sure that his reply was perfectly unanswerable.

“He speaks the truth, Sir Thomas,” said the old knight.  “We owe a debt of gratitude to thee, Sir Henry.”

“I found this knife where De la Zouch was lying,” said Stanley bluntly.  “I thought it was his, and so I brought it for him.”

De la Zouch gazed with horror upon the tell-tale weapon, but in an instant he decided how to parry the thrust.

“’Tis mine,” he cried, hastily snatching it away.  “The villains wrested it from my grasp.”

“And part of the blade was buried in the horse’s flank,” pursued Sir Thomas.  “I discovered it there when the horse dashed into the yard covered with blood and foam.”

“The wretches!” interjected De la Zouch.

“And yet, Sir Henry, methought the struggle took place at Cromford, and that would be nigh three miles from where I found the knife.”

Sir Henry turned livid with anger, and was at a loss how to reply, when Lady Vernon fortunately came to the rescue.

“You struggled worthily, sir knight,” said she, “and I would that the cause had been more worthy of thy mettle.  We cannot doubt thee more.”

“I cannot contradict thee,” went on Margaret’s lover, “but you will show us the exact scene of the fray, Sir Henry, of course?”

“Assuredly I will, to-morrow—­if I am well enough,” he added carefully.

Sir George Vernon noted the answer with displeasure.  He was not very strong in his belief of Sir Henry’s innocence as yet, though the evidence in De la Zouch’s favour would have been decisive enough for him had not Stanley shaken it so.

“Has thy Dorothy forsaken thee, then, Sir George?” asked Crowleigh pertinently.

“Why no, Sir Everard—­yes; that is—­I cannot say,” he hopelessly replied.  “It must be so, and yet, no!  I cannot believe it either.”

De la Zouch ground his teeth in ill-suppressed rage.  Matters had taken a decidedly unfavourable turn; he was being sorely worsted, and he wished himself far away.  The suspicions of Sir Thomas Stanley were pressing uncomfortably near him, and he found himself in a quandary how to evade them.