“My Lady Bertrade,” he said at last, “I have come to fulfill a promise.”
He spoke in French, and she started slightly at his voice. Before, Norman of Torn had always spoken in English. Where had she heard that voice! There were tones in it that haunted her.
“What promise did Norman of Torn e’er make to Bertrade de Montfort?” she asked. “I do not understand you, my friend.”
“Look,” he said. And as she approached the table he withdrew the cloth which covered the object that the man had placed there.
The girl started back with a little cry of terror, for there upon a golden platter was a man’s head; horrid with the grin of death baring yellow fangs.
“Dost recognize the thing?” asked the outlaw. And then she did; but still she could not comprehend. At last, slowly, there came back to her the idle, jesting promise of Roger de Conde to fetch the head of her enemy to the feet of his princess, upon a golden dish.
But what had the Outlaw of Torn to do with that! It was all a sore puzzle to her, and then she saw the bared left hand of the grim, visored figure of the Devil of Torn, where it rested upon the table beside the grisly head of Peter of Colfax; and upon the third finger was the great ring she had tossed to Roger de Conde on that day, two years before.
What strange freak was her brain playing her! It could not be, no it was impossible; then her glance fell again upon the head grinning there upon the platter of gold, and upon the forehead of it she saw, in letters of dried blood, that awful symbol of sudden death—NT!
Slowly her eyes returned to the ring upon the outlaw’s hand, and then up to his visored helm. A step she took toward him, one hand upon her breast, the other stretched pointing toward his face, and she swayed slightly as might one who has just arisen from a great illness.
“Your visor,” she whispered, “raise your visor.” And then, as though to herself: “It cannot be; it cannot be.”