Henry de Stramen had been nursed in the bitterest hostility to all who bore the name of Hers, and the unrelenting persecution of the Lord Sandrit had made Gilbert detest most cordially the house of Stramen.

It was with mutual hatred, then, that the two young men had met at the spring.

They knew each other well, for they had often fought hand to hand, with their kinsmen and serfs around them.

Now they were alone, and what a triumph would be the victor's! but the bell, the Tell of peace, the silver-tongued herald of the truce of God, had sheathed their weapons.
It could not have been without a severe struggle that the two mortal foes rode quietly in the same direction, with but a few yards between them.

They were not half an hour in the saddle when they discovered the spire of the church they were both in search of, rising gracefully above the trees.