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Updated: June 15, 2025
We have the craven foe in our hands now, and this time he shall not escape us!" Gaston ground his teeth, and his eyes flashed fire, as he thought of all the wickedness of Peter Sanghurst. He was within the walls of Basildene, his brother's rightful inheritance; the memory of the cruelty and the treachery of this man was fresh in his mind.
The face she turned towards him, with the glowing autumn sunshine full upon it, was scarcely such as could be called encouraging to an ardent lover. But Peter Sanghurst only smiled as she stood there in her proud young beauty, the russet autumn tints framing her noble figure in vivid colours. "I have taken you by surprise, sweet lady," he said; "it is long since we met."
The servants who attended Mistress Joan were all devoted to her, and kept their own counsel, whatever they might think, and Raymond's fame as one of the heroes of Crecy had already gone far and wide, and won him great regard in and about the walls of his uncle's home; but there was another watcher of Mistress Joan's movements who took a vastly different view of the little idyll playing itself out between the youth and the maiden, and this watcher was none other than the evil and vengeful Peter Sanghurst the younger.
It had been notorious in old days that the Sanghursts had some peculiar hold upon him, and was it likely that Peter Sanghurst, who was plainly resolved to make Joan his wife, would allow that power to rest unused when it might be employed for the furtherance of his purpose?
He began to think Sanghurst had spoken no more than the truth in saying that Mistress Joan appeared to have withdrawn her opposition to him as a husband. "But so it is to be," answered her father, quickly and imperiously, trying to seize this favourable moment to get the matter settled.
It is Peter Sanghurst who has robbed Raymond of his token, and he may make cruel use of what he has treacherously filched away. I must lose not a day nor an hour. I must to England in the wake of this villain. Oh, why did I not understand before? What may he not have done ere I can stop his false mouth? The King shall hear all; the King shall be told all the tale!
He was about to summon my father and a priest and make me his wife, here in this very place, and never let me stir thence till the chain was bound about me. But I had a way of escape. Yon faithful servant, who shared my perils and my wanderings, had given me his word to strike me dead ere he would see me wedded to Sanghurst.
"Nay, I am no dreamer," was the smiling answer; and a slight access of colour came slowly into John's face. "I have not seen fair Mistress Joan of late; yet unless I be greatly mistaken in her, I am very sure that by no deed of her own will she ever mate with one of the Sanghurst brood. I have known her from childhood.
"Do what you will, Peter Sanghurst," she said: "summon my father, call the priest, do what you will, your wife I will never be. I have told you so before; I tell it you again." He smiled a smile more terrible than his frown. "We shall see about that," was his reply, as he turned on his heel and strode from the room.
I have heard of a secret way from the level of the water into the cellars or dungeons of the house; but whether this be true I do not rightly know. Yet methinks you could surely find entrance within the house, for so great is the terror in which Basildene is held that Master Sanghurst freely boasts that he needs neither bolt nor bar.
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