Jeffray stooped and picked up the sword that lay on the grass where he had thrown it when Lot fell.
“Do you know who that man was?” he asked her.
“No.”
“Lancelot Hardacre.”
“Sir Peter’s son?”
“Yes.”
“Why did he come to quarrel with you?”
“Because I had refused to marry his sister.”
They stood silent a moment, looking at each other, each knowing by intuition what was passing in the other’s mind. A great weight of doubt had been lifted from Jeffray’s heart. Life had taken a simpler meaning for him now that Lot Hardacre’s blood had set the seal of enmity upon the past. The action of an hour had sundered him irretrievably from Jilian and brought him nearer to this child of the woods.
“Bess,” he said, holding his sword between his hands, “I never loved this woman. Do you believe me when I tell you that?”