"Well, 'twas a knightly thing to do, to leave a lady; a right gallant thing, nay by my troth it was," said Stanley, severely. "And my brother is on his way here, too; what will Edward say?"
"Poor Sir Henry, we have judged thee hardly, I fear, but we must try to make amends for it now," said the dame sympathetically.
"She must be found; she shall," interrupted the baron, emphasising the last word with a stamp of the foot. "Manners shall suffer though I—"
"Tush, Sir George, let them go," interrupted his good lady. "They will want to return soon enough."
"Nay, she must be traced and brought home again," said Stanley.
"Edward would die of chagrin else."
"She shall be found," repeated the baron decisively.
De la Zouch had mentally calculated that a slight relapse in his condition would probably arouse a wider feeling of sympathy for him, and to secure this end he closed his eyes and gasped for breath, but the feeling of suspicion was too firmly rooted to be dispelled so easily, and he opened his eyes again to find his companions as cold and unsympathetic as before.
"You have not told us all," exclaimed Crowleigh. "Manners would never leave his host in so graceless a style, I know."
"Have I not told thee the truth, Sir George?" De la Zouch meekly appealed, "and do not these rents and scars bear me out? 'Tis a pretty reward for a noble fight is this," and he finished with a sigh of profound discontent.
"I believe thee," returned the baron slowly, to whom the evidence of the torn garments and De la Zouch's wounds appeared irresistible.