hands are full of fat manors, and—best of all gifts!—the heart of the fairest lady in the hall is openly bestowed on thee! What more canst thou ask of the future? Take what thou hast, and go barefoot to the chapel and thank the white Christ for His bounty! Stay thy questioning, lest what thou hast shall be reft from thee!'

'A brave man defies fortune,' answered De Guader, tossing back his dark head proudly.

'Then if the prophecy be not to thy liking,' returned Adelina, 'if the spirits foretell evil days, I pray thee blame not their mouthpiece.' Her agitation was extreme, which was not surprising, as the fierce nobles of those days were apt to deal harshly with the messengers of unpleasing news.

She chanted a wild incantation, dancing round the tripod and the earl, and swung her censer to and fro till it gave forth strange fumes and clouds of smoke, by which her face and the earl's were veiled from the spectators. Now and again her turbaned head was seen through the vapours, her eyes intently fixed on her mirror, but none could tell what was passing.

Presently the earl returned to the daïs with a somewhat white face. Emma's eyes were bent upon him with anxious inquiry.

'She has promised me that which I covet most, dear lady,' whispered De Guader in answer to her look: 'my bridal with thee is to come to fulfilment. I am to pass my life with thee, and die with thee, near the blessed city of Jerusalem.'

'The Holy Virgin be praised!' answered Emma devoutly; 'and pardon thee for asking the future, if sin be in it.' Then, recognising the admission she had made by acknowledging her joy in the prophecy, she blushed and turned away from De Guader's happy eyes.

'Aha! sister of mine, it seems my sorceress has pleasured thee with her prophecies,' remarked Earl Roger. 'I will see if she can be equally gracious to me.'

'Thou hadst best brace thy nerves for a shock, man,' cried De Guader after him as he left the daïs. 'Those spirits have verily a knack of telling home truths without mincing matters.'

Adelina's agitation increased when she saw her master appearing as the next candidate. She trembled from head to foot.

'I prithee spare me this, Roger Fitzosbern,' she said in a scarce audible voice. But the earl insisted.

Then followed the same preliminaries as before,—the dance, and the chant, and the smoke-wreaths, then the whispered mysteries. But this time sharp, angry interjections and round Norman oaths were mingled with the murmurings of Adelina's voice, and all at once the unhappy fortune-teller threw up her bangled arms and fell backwards fainting, while the Earl of Hereford, with an angry stamp, broke out of the charmed circle and rushed back to his seat.

Adelina's neophytes ran forward to the rescue, for her garments had caught fire from the censer, and all was bustle and confusion. The huge snake lay calmly through it, however, for, to say truth, it was stuffed, and worked with wires.

The Countess of Hereford sprang up to greet her lord, and the two little boys burst out a-wailing, sore frightened at their father's altered face, while Emma also rose to greet her brother with terror in her eyes, trembling at the evidence he gave that evil had been foretold him.

But he soon regained his calmness, and laughed as he saw the reflection of his mood in their agonised faces.

'Pah! it is all nonsense!' he said, wiping the sweat from his brow. 'I believe the witch must be in league with the devil to have so wrought on me.'

He looked round the hall, and gave another forced laugh.

'I am to lose all my lands, to be despoiled of my earldom, and die in prison, she says.'

The ladies exclaimed in horror, and the men laughed derisively; but Earl Ralph's jester, Grillonne, whispered sagely to his neighbour, 'Good nuncle! when they promised me a swishing at school, I made effort to keep it to myself. But I am a fool.'

No one seemed inclined to consult such a fortune-teller for his own part, and the Earl of Hereford ordered a Welsh minstrel, who had been sent him in compliment by one of the Welsh chiefs on the Marches, whom Hereford had lately beaten and made terms with, to regale the company with some of his ballads.

At this juncture a great shout was heard from the castle-yard, and a moment later a servitor announced the return of the messenger who had been sent to the king; and, the Earl of Hereford bidding him enter, a knight and squire, travel-stained and showing signs of a hasty journey, advanced up the hall and bowed before the daïs.

The knight dropped on his knee, and presented the earl with a missive tied with purple silk and sealed with the royal seal.

'How now, Sir Neel! how comest thou so tardily?' demanded the earl, taking the letter from the knight with eager hands and severing the silk with his dagger.

'I was detained, my lord, at Rouen to wait the king's good pleasure.'

The faces of the two earls darkened, and Roger Fitzosbern tore open the king's missive.

Scarce reading it, he flung it to De Guader with a savage oath, stamping his foot upon the ground.

'William shall rue this insult!' he hissed between his shut teeth, his face scarlet and convulsed with rage; 'and to my father's son.'

De Guader, not less moved, held the parchment with hands that so shook with anger that the dangling seals clattered against each other. His broad chest heaved, and his steel-grey eyes flashed fire as sword strikes fire on helm.

Emma, with pale cheeks and wide eyes, turned from her brother to her lover, and the East Anglian earl, exercising a huge command over himself, kept silence, and returned the letter to Roger Fitzosbern.

Hereford shook it in the air, clenching his fingers, while all the guests hung wonderingly on his actions.

Suddenly he tore the king's letter into fragments.

'Thus has William rent in sunder the ties that bound me to him!' he shouted furiously.

Osbern, Bishop of Exeter, the Earl of Hereford's uncle, who, though he had refused the sanction of his presence to the performances of Adelina, had entered the hall when the king's messenger arrived, made his way through the noble crowd that surrounded his nephew.

'Hist, my Roger! Anger is short madness. Keep a hold over the unruly member, lest words spoken in wrath be thy bane in time of peace. I know not the contents of the missive that hath moved thee so greatly, but I prithee be calm.'

'Calm!' cried Roger. 'Calm! De Guader, art thou calm?'

'Yes,' answered De Guader shortly, his breath breaking in quick pants, and a strange green light not pleasant to witness gleaming in his eyes, so that all who saw him felt that his calmness was more terrible than Roger's fury.

'Then, by the rood! if thou art so calm,' retorted Hereford, 'tell my guests how they have been befooled. Tell my sister she has bestowed her hand on one who can resign it "calmly."'

'My son, my son,' remonstrated the bishop, 'thou art unjust to thy noble brother, whose stake in this matter is even greater than thine.'

'Nay, my brother he is forbid to be!' stormed Roger, with another terrific curse.

De Guader turned to the beautiful girl to whom he had come to bind himself in solemn betrothal, and who, having accepted his wooing, had made no secret of her love.

His face was pallid almost as his ivory robe, his lips trembled as he held out his hands to her, but for some moments he was dumb. When at last he compelled speech, his voice was dull with pain and quivering with measureless indignation.

'My lady,' he said, holding one of her hands in each of his, but not trusting himself to look in her face, 'I must bid thee farewell. I have no right to remain longer in this castle. The king has forbidden our marriage. I had hoped to make thee my bride. Bride of my heart thou wilt always be!'

Before the startled, frightened girl could frame a reply, he had stooped and kissed her, sprung from the daïs, and was striding down the hall, with the many barons