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Things went merrily after that, for Guillem drew a knife and made, not for the seigneur, but for Joan. The troubadours feared to stop singing without a signal, so they sang through white lips. The dogs gnawed at their bones and the seigneur sat and smiled, showing his teeth.

Guillem, finally unhanded, stood with folded arms and waited for death.

“It is the time of the Truce of God,” said the seigneur softly, and, knowing that death would be a boon, sent him off unhurt.

* * * * *

The village, which had eaten full, slept early that night. Down the hill at nine o’clock came half a dozen men-at-arms on horseback and clattered through the streets. Word went about quickly. Great oaken doors were unbarred to the news:

“The child Clotilde is gone!” they cried through the streets. “Up and arm. The child Clotilde is gone.”

Joan, deserted, sat alone in the great hall. For the seigneur was off, riding like a madman. Flying through the Market Square, he took the remains of the great fire at a leap. He had but one thought. The Jew had stolen the child; therefore, to find the Jew.

In the blackest of the night he found him, sitting by the road, bent over his staff. The eyes he raised to Charles were haggard and weary. Charles reined his horse back on his haunches, his men-at-arms behind him.

“What have you done with the child?”

“The child?”

“Out with it,” cried Charles and flung himself from his horse. If the Jew were haggard, Charles was more so, hard bitten of terror, pallid to the lips.

“I have seen no child. That is–” He hastened to correct himself, seeing Charles’ face in the light of a torch. “I was released by a child, a girl. I have not seen her since.”

He spoke with the simplicity of truth. In the light of the torches Charles’ face went white.

“She released you?” he repeated slowly. “What did she say?”

“She said: ‘It is the birthday of our Lord,'” repeated the Jew, slowly, out of his weary brain. “‘And I am doing a good deed.'”

“Is that all?” The Jew hesitated.

“Also she said: ‘But you do not love our Lord.'”

Charles swore under his breath. “And you?”

“I said but little. I–“

“What did you say?”

“I said that her Lord was also a Jew.” He was fearful of giving offence, so he hastened to add: “It was by way of comforting the child. Only that, my lord.”

“She said nothing else?” The seigneur’s voice was dangerously calm.

The Jew faltered. He knew the gossip of the town.

“She said–she said she wished two things, my lord. To become a boy and–to see her mother.”

Then Charles lifted his face to where the stars were growing dim before the uprising of the dawn, and where, as far away as the eye could reach and as far again, lay the castle of his cousin Philip of the Black Beard. And the rage was gone out of his eyes. For suddenly he knew that, on that feast of mother and child, Clotilde had gone to her mother, as unerringly as an arrow to its mark.

And with the rage died all the passion and pride. In the eyes that had gazed at Joan over the parapet, and that now turned to the east, there was reflected the dawning of a new day.

* * * * *

The castle of Philip the Black lay in a plain. For as much as a mile in every direction the forest had been sacrificed against the loving advances of his cousin Charles. Also about the castle was a moat in which swam noisy geese and much litter.

When, shortly after dawn, the sentry at the drawbridge saw a great horse with a double burden crossing the open space he was but faintly interested. A belated peasant with his Christmas dues, perhaps. But when, on the lifting of the morning haze, he saw that the horse bore two children and one a girl, he called another man to look.