"Indeed I can," he retorted, "on my honour 'tis a mere scratch."
"An you'll not take my arm," she said peremptorily, "I'll call for help."
"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed gaily. "I should be laughed at for a malingerer. Shall we return to the tavern, Madonna? and will you not take mine arm?"
He held his right arm out to her, but as he did so she noticed that he kept the other behind his back.
She did take his arm, however. It was obviously best--since he was more severely hurt than he cared to admit--to go at once back to the tavern, and dress the wound there with water and clean linen.
They walked in silence side by side. It was only a matter of an hundred yards or so, and after a very few moments they reached the porch of the "Merry Beggars," and as the buxom hostess was standing there, vaguely wondering what had happened to her guests, Lenora at once despatched her off for a basin of clean warm water and her very softest linen towels.
Then she went into the tapperij, and Mark followed her.
The room was as peaceful, as deserted as it had been awhile ago. The host himself had in the interval made up the fire, and it was blazing brightly, lighting up the little ingle-nook, with the high-backed chair wherein Lenora had sat and the low one drawn so close to it.
Turning to Mark, she noticed that he still kept his left arm resolutely behind his back.
"Our good hostess won't be long with the water," she said, "in the meanwhile, I pray you let me tend to your wound."