It was his father--the warrior sire whom he had never seen, who fell in Syria.

Godwin knew him well, for the face was the face carven on the tomb in Stangate church, and he wore the blood-red cross upon his mail, and the D'Arcy Death's-head was on his shield, and in his hand shone a naked sword.
"Is this the soul of my son ?" he asked of the whiterobed watchers.

"If so, how died he ?" Then the angel at his foot answered: "He died, red sword aloft, fighting a good fight." "Fighting for the Cross of Christ ?" "Nay; fighting for a woman." "Fighting for a woman's love who should have fallen in the Holy War?
Alas! poor son; alas! poor son! Alas! that we must part again forever!" and his voice, too, passed away.
Lo! a Glory advanced through the blackness, and the angels at head and foot stood up and saluted with their flaming spears.
"How died this child of God ?" asked a voice, speaking out of the Glory, a low and awful voice.
"He died by the sword," answered the angel.
"By the sword of the children of the enemy, fighting in the war of Heaven ?" Then the angels were silent.
"What has Heaven to do with him, if he fought not for Heaven ?" asked the voice again.
"Let him be spared," pleaded the guardians, "who was young and brave, and knew not.

Send him back to earth, there to retrieve his sins and be our charge once more." "So be it," said the voice.

"Knight, live on, but live as a knight of Heaven if thou wouldst win Heaven." "Must he then put the woman from him ?" asked the angels.
"It was not said," answered the voice speaking from the Glory.
And all that wild vision vanished.
Then a space of oblivion, and Godwin awoke to hear other voices around him, voices human, well-beloved, remembered; and to see a face bending over him--a face most human, most well-beloved, most remembered--that of his cousin Rosamund.