This done, he knelt and prayed as he had been bidden, with a very earnest heart, and afterward came back to the guest-hall.
Seeing folk gathered there as he entered he laid hand on sword, not his own with which he had killed his cousin, but a long and knightly weapon that Sir Andrew had given him with the armour.

Drawing it, he advanced boldly, for he thought that his enemies might have found him out, and that his best safety lay in courage.

Thus he appeared in the ring of the lamplight clad in gleaming steel and with raised weapon.
"What, son!" asked a testy voice which he knew for that of his own father, "is it not enough to have killed your cousin?
Would you fall on your brothers and me also, that you come at us clad in mail and with bare steel in hand ?" Hearing these words Hugh sheathed the sword, and, advancing toward the speaker, a handsome, portly man, who wore a merchant's robe lined with rich fur, sank to his knee before him.
"Your pardon, my father," he said.

"Sir Andrew here will have told you the story; also that I am not to blame for this blood-shedding." "I think you need to ask it," replied Master de Cressi, "and if you and that lean henchman of yours are not to blame, then say who is ?" Now a tall, slim figure glided up to them.

It was Eve, clothed in her own robe again, and beautiful as ever after her short rest.
"Sir, I am to blame," she said in her full, low voice.