They had not torn that poor faithful child from his side.

Hereford's last commands had been that they should not part them, and there they now lay; and sleep, balmy sleep had for them descended on the wings of night, hovering over that humble pallet of straw, when from the curtained couch of power, the downy bed of luxury, she fled.

There they lay; but it was the boy who lay on the pallet of straw, his head pillowed by the arm of the knight, who sat on a wooden settle at his side.

He had watched for a brief space those troubled slumbers, but as they grew calmer and calmer, he had pressed one light kiss on the soft yielding cheek, and then leant his head on his breast, and he too slept--even in sleep tending one beloved.
And in the dark, close sleeping-chamber within the prison cage of the noble Countess of Buchan, night too looked pityingly.

Sleep indeed was not there; it had come and gone, for in a troubled slumber a dream had come of Agnes, and she had woke to think upon her child, and pray for her; and as she prayed, she thought of her promise to the poor boy who had so strangely moved her.