"I trust," said Philip politely, "that you are better?"
Save for a slight dizziness, the minstrel said, he was.
"And yet," urged Philip feelingly, "I'm sure you'll not take to the road to-night, feeling wobbly. The inn back there in the village is immensely attractive. And a bed is the place for a sick man."
"He will remain where he is," flashed Diane perversely, "until he feels quite able to go on."
"Will you?" asked Philip pointedly.
The minstrel rose weakly and glanced at Diane with profound gratitude.
"After all," he said hurriedly, "he is doubtless right. Ill or not I must go on."
"An excellent notion!" approved Philip cordially. "I'll go with you."
Now whether or not the hurry and excitement of rising in these somewhat frictional circumstances brought on a recurrence of the nomad's singular disease, Diane did not know, but certainly he staggered and fell back, faint and moaning by the fire, thereby arousing an immediate commotion.
Philip grimly took his pulse and met Diane's sympathetic glance with one of honest indignation.