Suddenly De Wilton laughed. "My mind surely is getting weak," he said.
"I clean forgot you had never seen the Countess."
"Oh, yes, I have--on the wall last night."
"Was it possible you were near when Darby found her?"
"I was with her."
"With her!" said De Wilton incredulously. "Surely you do not mean it."
De Lacy's face straightened. "Be a little more explicit, please," he
said.
"Tut, man, I meant no offence," was the good-natured answer. "You do
not understand the matter. The Countess never walks alone on the
ramparts after dark with any man save the Duke and me."
"St. Denis, I forgot. It was _you_ she walked with," said Aymer.
De Wilton stared at him. "Are you quite sane?" he asked.
De Lacy linked his arm within the other's. "Come over to the window
and I will tell you how, last night, Sir Ralph de Wilton chanced to
walk with the Countess of Clare on the ramparts of Pontefract."
"And I suppose then it was you, and not I, who talked with the Duchess
in her presence chamber all the time the Countess of Clare was gone."
"No, I was on the ramparts, too," De Lacy answered. "Listen--here is
the tale."
"Good!" exclaimed De Wilton at the end. "She punished Darby well--I
wish I could have seen it; and it cut him to the raw, for all his suave
indifference." Suddenly he struck the wall sharply. "And yet--she
rides with him to-day. St. George! We are back where we started.
Women are queer creatures!"
Just then Sir James Dacre stopped at the corridor door.
"Who is for a ride?" he asked.
"I am," said De Lacy, "if Sir Ralph will excuse me."
De Wilton nodded. "Go, by all means; it was good of you to keep me
company even for a moment."
"I might venture to guess," said Dacre, as they cantered across the
bailey toward the gate, "that that black of yours was never foaled in
England."
"I got Selim in Spain," De Lacy answered, "and with him the story that
he came from the stables of the Soldan of Granada--but of that I cannot
vouch--nor do I care," patting the shining shoulder; "he is my good
friend and companion, and he has never failed me."
Dacre looked at the small head, with its bright, full, kind eye, broad
forehead, tapered muzzle, thin, sensitive nostrils and ears; at the
arched neck, the deep chest, the rather short barrel, the narrow waist,
powerful flanks, and sinewy, springy, slender legs.
"He is beautiful," he said. "Methinks I never saw so perfect a horse."
"And his intelligence is in kind," said Aymer. "He has many
accomplishments, but the one most satisfactory to me is the way he
understands my voice. . . Observe------"
He dropped the reins over the pommel, and at the word, Selim, without
touch of knee or shift of bit, went through all the gaits and facings,
ending with the most difficult of all--the seven artificial movements
of the horse.
Sir James Dacre's rather cold face warmed with admiration and he reined
over and stroked the black's soft muzzle.
"You are a wonder, Selim," he said. "Your equal is not in the Kingdom;
though, in a short dash, the Countess' bay mare might put you to your
speed."
"Very likely," said Aymer, "but I will wager there is none in England
can beat him from the Solway to Land's End."