'A good lad, a good lad, and ever courteous,' answered Dame Amicia. 'Thou dost well to probe the matter. I thought he had gone to Bretagne.'
'It seems he was in durance in this castle,' said Emma. 'But we knew it not; or, if my lord knew it, he had no time to sift the charges against him. Methinks, if he have somewhat erred, he has been punished enough, and I may grant him pardon.'
'Ay; if we forgive not the trespasses of others, how can we pray with a clean heart that our own may be forgiven?' replied the old lady, nodding again. 'We must practise forgiveness, or our paternosters are but a mockery.'
No further words were spoken till they reached the apartment to which, according to the orders of the countess, Sir Aimand had been conveyed.
De Gourin had taken the precaution to place a stout warder at the door, who announced the visit of the countess to the knight.
When Emma entered the chamber, Sir Aimand threw himself on his knee before her, with an expression of deep homage, and bowed to her and to her venerable attendant.
'Noble countess,' he exclaimed, 'I scarce know how to form my gratitude in words!'
Emma was freshly shocked when she saw his face and form. Shaven and close-clipped as became a Norman knight, and clad in tunic and hose, the ravages of two months of misery were but the more conspicuous, as they owed no adventitious aid to wild elf-locks and shaggy beard. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes unnaturally bright with fever, and the bones of his thin hands and limbs were pitiful to see. His voice also was hoarse and hollow. Emma felt that the revelations of the morning moved her more, not less, than the doleful horrors of the preceding night.
'I fear me thou hast greatly suffered,' she said involuntarily. 'Rise, Sir Aimand, and be seated; thou art not fit to stand.'
And Sir Aimand was forced to obey her, for, as he rose to his feet, he tottered and clutched at a stool for support, and Emma recalled some fears that had crossed her mind during the night, with pathetic amusement, for she had been haunted with the idea that she had perhaps let loose a very dangerous champion in the castle. The poor knight looked little able to fight either for her cause or against it.