She had seen herself coming softly behind him, laying a tender hand upon those bowed shoulders; then, as he lifted eyes in which dull despair would quickly give place to wondering joy, saying: "Hugh, I am come home." But now, as she passed through the buttery, Mora had to realise that yet again she had failed to understand the man she loved.
It was not in him, to sit and brood over lost happiness.

If she failed him finally, he was ready in this, as in all else, to play the man, going straight on, unhindered by vain regret.
Once again her pride in him, in that he was finer than her own conceptions, quickened her love, even while it humbled her, in her own estimation, to a place at his feet.
A glory of joy was on her face as, making her way through to the terrace, now bathed in sunset light, she passed up to the chamber she had prepared during Hugh's absence.
All was as she had left it.
Fastening the door by which she had entered from the garden, she noiselessly opened that which gave on to the great hall.
The hall was dark and deserted, but the door into the armoury stood ajar.
A shaft of golden sunshine streamed through the half-open door.
She heard the clang of armour.

She could not see Hugh, but even as she stood in her own doorway, looking across the hall, she heard his voice, singing, as he worked, snatches of the latest song of Blondel, the King's Minstrel.
With beating heart, Mora turned and closed her door, making it fast within..