PART II

XIII

Fra Balthasar rubbed his colours in the chapel of Castle Avalon, and

stared complacently upon the frescoes his fingers had called into being.

A migratory friar, Fra Balthasar had come from the rich skies, the

purple vineyards, the glimmering orange groves of the far south. Gossip

hinted that a certain romantic indiscretion had driven him northwards

over the sea. A "bend sinister" ran athwart his reputation as a priest.

Men muttered that he was an infidel, a blasphemous vagabond, versed in

all the damnable heresies of antiquity. Be that as it may, Fra

Balthasar had come to Gilderoy on a white mule, with two servants at his

back, an apt tongue to serve him, and much craft as a painter and

goldsmith. He had set up a _bottega_ at Gilderoy, and had cozened the

patronage of the magnates and the merchants. Moreover, he had netted

the favour of the Lord Flavian of Avalon, and was blazoning his chapel

for him with the lavish fancy of a Florentine.

Fra Balthasar stood in a cataract of sunlight, that poured in through a

painted window in the west. He wore the white habit of Dominic and the

long black mantle. A golden mist played about his figure as he rubbed

his palette, and scanned with the egotism of the artist the _Pieta_

painted above the Lord Flavian's state stall. That gentleman, in the

flesh, had established himself on a velvet hassock before the altar

steps, thus flattering the friar in the part of a sympathetic patron.

The Lord of Avalon had dedicated his own person to art as an Eastern

King in the splendour of Gothic arms, kneeling bare-headed before the

infant Christ.

Fra Balthasar was a plump man and a comely, black of eye and full of

lip. His shaven chin shone blue as sleek velvet. He had turned from

the _Pieta_ towards the altar, where a triptych gleamed with massed and

brilliant colour. The Virgin, a palpitating divinity breathing stars

and gems from her full bosom, gazed with a face of sensuous serenity at

the infant lying in her lap. She seemed to exhale an atmosphere of

gold. On either wing, angels, transcendant girls in green and silver,

purple and azure, scarlet and white, made the soul swim with visions of

ruddy lips and milk-white hands. Their wings gleamed like opals. They

looked too frail for angels, too human for heaven.

The Lord of Avalon sat on his scarlet hassock, and stared at the Madonna

with some measure of awe. She was no attenuated, angular, green-faced

fragment of saintliness, but by every curve a woman, from plump finger

to coral lip.

"You are no Byzantine," quoth the man on the hassock, with something of

a sigh.

The priest glanced at him and smiled. There were curves in lip and

nostril that were more than indicative of a sleek and sensuous

worldliness. Fra Balthasar was much of an Antinous, and doted on the

conviction.

"I paint women, messire," he said.

His lordship laughed.

"Divinities?"

Balthasar flourished his brush.

"Divine creatures, golden flowers of the world. Give me the rose to

crush against my mouth, violets to burn upon my bosom. Truth, sire,

consider the sparkling roundness of a woman's arm. Consider her

wine-red lips, her sinful eyes, her lily fingers dropping spikenard into

the soul. I confess, sire, that I am a man."

The friar's opulent extravagance of sentiment suited the litheness of

his look. Balthasar had enthroned himself in his own imagination as a

species of Apollo, a golden-tongued seer, whose soul soared into the

glittering infinitudes of art. An immense egotist, he posed as a

full-blooded divinity, palpitating to colour and to sound. He had as

many moods as a vain woman, and was a mere fire-fly in the matter of

honour.

"Reverend sire," quoth the man on the footstool with some tightening of

the upper lip, "you bulk too big for your frock, methinks."

Balthasar touched a panel with his brush; cast a glance over his

shoulder, with a cynical lifting of the nostril.

"My frock serves me, sire, as well as a coat of mail."

"And you believe the things you paint?"

The man swept a vermilion streak from his brush.

"An ingenuous question, messire."

"I am ever ingenuous."

"A perilous habit."

"Yet you have not answered me."

The friar tilted his chin like a woman eyeing herself in a mirror.

"Religion is full of picturesque incidents," he said.

"And is profitable."

"Sire, you shame Solomon. There are ever many rich and devout fools in

the world. Give me a gleaming Venus, rising ruddy from the sea, rather

than a lachrymose Magdalene. But what would you? I trim my Venus up in

fine apparel, put a puling infant in her lap. _Ecce--Sancta Maria_."

The man on the footstool smiled despite the jester's theme, a smile that

had more scorn in it than sympathy.

"You verge on blasphemy," he said.

"There can be no blasphemy where there is no belief."

"You are over subtle, my friend."

"Nay, sire, I have come by that godliness of mind when man discovers his

own godhead. Let your soul soar, I say, let it beat its wings into the

blue of life. Hence with superstition. Shall I subordinate my mind to

the prosings of a mad charlatan such as Saul of Tarsus? Shall I, like

each rat in this mortal drain, believe that some god cares when I have

gout in my toe, or when I am tempted to bow to Venus?"

The man on the hassock grimaced, and eyed the friar much as though he

had stumbled on some being from the underworld. He was a mystic for all

his manhood.

"God pity your creed," he said.

"God, the inflated mortal----"

"Enough."

"This man god of yours who tosses the stars like so many lemons."

"Enough, sir friar."

"Defend me from your mass of metaphor, your relics of barbarism. We,

the wise ones, have our own hierarchy, our own Olympus."

"On my soul, you are welcome to it," quoth the man by the altar.

Balthasar's hand worked viciously; he was strenuous towards his own

beliefs, after the fashion of dreamers delirious with egotism. The very

splendour of his infidelity took its birth from the fact that it was

largely of his own creating. His pert iconoclasm pandered to his own

vast self-esteem.

"Tell me for what you live," said the man by the altar.

"For beauty."

"And the senses?"

"Colours, odours, sounds. To breathe, to burn, and to enjoy. To be a

Greek and a god."

"And life?"

"Is a great fresco, a pageant of passions."

The Lord of Avalon sprang up and began to pace the aisle with the air of

a man whose blood is fevered. For all his devoutness and his mystical

fidelity, he was in too human and passionate a mood to be invulnerable

to Balthasar's sensuous shafts of fire. The Lord Flavian had come by a

transcendental star-soaring spirit, an inspiration that had torched the

wild beacon of romance. He was red for a riot of chivalry, a passage of

desire.

Turning back towards the altar, he faced the Madonna with her choir of

angel girls. Fra Balthasar was watching him with a feline sleekness of

visage, and a smile that boasted something of contempt. The friar

considered spirituality a species of magician's lanthorn for the

cozening of fools.

"What quip have you for love?" said the younger man, halting by the

altar rails.

Balthasar stood with poised brush.

"There is some sincerity in the emotion," he said.

"You are experienced?"

"Sire, consider my 'habit.'"

The friar's mock horror was surprising, an excellent jest that fell like

a blunted bolt from the steel of a vigorous manhood. The Lord Flavian

ran on.

"Shall I fence with an infidel?" he asked.

"Sire, a man may be a man without the creed of Athanasius."

"How much of me do you understand?"

Fra Balthasar cleared his throat.

"The Lady Duessa, sire, is a rose of joy."

"Monk!"

"My lord, it was your dictum that you are ever ingenuous. I echo you."

"Need I confess to you on such a subject?"

"Nay, sire, you have the inconsistency of a poet."

"How so?"

"Well, well, one can sniff rotten apples without opening the door of the

cupboard."

The younger man jerked away, and went striding betwixt the array of

frescoes with something of the wild vigour of a blind Polyphemus.

Balthasar, subtle sophist, watched him from the angle of his eye with

the sardonic superiority of one well versed in the contradictions of the

world. He had scribbled a shrewd sketch of the passions stirring in his

patron's heart. Had he not heard from the man's own lips of the

white-faced elf of the pine woods and her vengeance? And the Lady

Duessa! Fra Balthasar was as wise in the gossip of Gilderoy as any

woman.

"Sire," he said, as the aristocrat turned in his stride, "I ask of you a

bold favour."

"Speak out."

"Suffer me to paint your mood in words."

The man stared, shrugged his shoulders, smiled enigmatically.

"Try your craft," he said.

Balthasar began splashing in a foreground with irritable bravado.

"My lord, you were a fool at twenty," were his words.

"A thrice damned fool," came the echo.

Balthasar chuckled.

"And now, messire, a golden chain makes a Tantalus of you. Life crawls

like a sluggish river. You chafe, you strain, you rebel, feed on your

own heart, sin to assert your liberty. Youth slips from you; the sky

narrows about your ears. Well, well, have I not read aright?"

"Speak on," quoth the man by the altar.

"Ah, sire, it is the old tale. They have cramped up your youth with

book and ring; shut you up in a moral sarcophagus with a woman they call

your wife. You burn for liberty, and the unknown that shines like a

purple streak in a fading west. Ah, sire, you look for that one

marvellous being, who shall torch again the youth in your heart, make

your blood burn, your soul to sing. That one woman in the world,

mysterious as the moon, subtle as the night, ineffably strange as a

flaming dawn. That woman who shall lift you to the stars; whose lips

suck the sap of the world; whose bosom breathes to the eternal swoon of

all sweet sounds. She shall light the lust of battle in your heart.

For her your sword shall leap, your towers totter. Chivalry should lead

you like a pillar of fire out of the night, a heroic god striving for a

goddess."

The Lord of Avalon stood before the high altar as one transfigured.

Youth leapt in him, red, glorious, and triumphant. Balthasar's tongue

had set the pyre aburning.

"By God, it is the truth," he said.

The friar gathered his brushes, and took breath.

"Hast thou found thy Beatrice, O my son?"

"Have I gazed into heaven?"

Balthasar's voice filled the chapel.

"Live, sire, live!" he said.

"Ah!"

"Be mad! Drink star wine, and snuff the odours of all the sunsets!

Live, live! You can repent in comfort when you are sixty and measure

fifty inches round the waist."

XIV

Dame Duessa had come to Avalon, having heard certain whisperings of

Gilderoy, and of a golden-haired Astarte who kept house there. Dame

Duessa was a proud woman and a passionate, headstrong as a reformer,

jealous as a parish priest. She boasted a great ancestry and a great

name, and desires and convictions in keeping. She was a woman who loved

her robe cupboard, her jewel-case, and her bed. Moreover, she pretended

some affection for the Lord Flavian her husband, perhaps arrogance of

ownership, seeing that Dame Duessa was very determined to keep him in

bonded compact with herself. She suspected that the man did not

consider her a saint, or worship her as such. Yet, termagant that she

was, Dame Duessa could suffer some trampling of empty sentiment,

provided Fate did not rob her of her share in the broad demesne and

rent-roll of Gambrevault.

Avalon was a castle of ten towers, linked by a strong curtain wall, and

built about a large central court and garden. A great moat circled the

whole, a moat broad and silvery as a lake, with water-lilies growing

thick in the shallows. Beyond the moat, sleek meadows tufted with green

rushes swept to the gnarled piers of the old oaks that vanguarded the

forest. The black towers slumbered in a mist of green, girded with

sheeny water, tented by the azure of a southern sky.

Dame Duessa, being a lady of silks and tissues, did not love the place

with all her soul. Avalon of the Orchards was dull, and smacked of

Arcady; it was far removed from that island of fair sin, Lauretia, the

King's city. Moreover, the Lord Flavian and his ungallant gentlemen

held rigorously to the northern turrets, leaving her to lodge

ascetically in her rich chamber in a southern tower.

Her husband contrived to exile himself as far as Castle Avalon could

suffer him. If the pair went to mass, they went separately, with the

frigid hauteur of an Athanasius handing an Aryus over to hell. When

they hunted they rode towards opposite stars. No children had chastened

them, pledges of heaven-given life. The Lady Duessa detested ought that

hinted at caudle, swaddling-clothes, and cradles. Moreover, all Avalon

seemed in league with the Lord Flavian. Knights, esquires, scullions,

horse-boys swore by him as though he were a Bayard. Dame Duessa could

rely solely on a prig of a page, and a lady-in-waiting who wore a wig,

and perhaps on Fra Balthasar, the Dominican.

Meanwhile, the Lord of Avalon had been putting forth his penitence in

stone and timber, and an army of craftsmen from Geraint. The glade in

Cambremont wood rang to the swing of axes and the hoarse groaning of the

saw. The tower had been purged of its ashes, its rooms retimbered, its

casements filled with glass. A chapel was springing into life under the

trees; the cleverest masons of the south were at work upon its pillars

and its arches. Fra Balthasar, the Dominican, held sway over the whole,

subtle in colour and the carving of stone. Flavian could have found no

better pander to his penitence. Rose nobles had been squandered.

Frescoes, jewel bright, were to blaze out upon the walls. The vaulted

roof was to be constellated with glimmering gold stars, shining from

skies of purple and azure.

To turn to Fulviac's great cliff hid in the dark depths of the forest of

pines. The disloyal chaff of the kingdom was wafted thither day by day,

borne on the conspiring breeze. The forest engulfed all comers and

delivered them like ghosts into Fulviac's caverns. An army might have

melted into the wilds, and the countryside have been none the wiser.

Amid the pines and rocks of the cliffs there were marchings and

countermarchings, much shouldering of pikes and ordering of companies.

Veterans who had fought the infidels under Wenceslaus, drilled the raw

levies, and inculcated with hoarse bellowings the rudiments of military

reason. They were rough gentlemen, and Fulviac stroked them with a

gauntlet of iron. They were to attempt liberty together, and he

demonstrated to them that such freedom could be won solely by discipline

and soldierly concord. The rogues grumbled and swore behind his back,

but were glad in their hearts to have a man for master.

To speak again of the girl Yeoland. That March night she had met

Fulviac over the wreckage of the broken gate, and had made a profession

of the truth, so far, she said, as she could conjecture it. She had

been long in the forest, had returned to the cliff to find the guards

slain, and the Lord Flavian gone. By some device he had escaped from

his shackles, slain the men, and fled by the northern postern. The

woman made a goodly pretence of vexation of spirit over the escape of

this reprobate. She even taunted Fulviac with foolhardiness, and lack

of foresight in so bungling her vengeance.

The man's escape from the cliff roused Fulviac's energies to full flood.

The aristocrat of Avalon was ignorant of the volcano bubbling under his

feet, yet any retaliatory meddling on his part might prove disastrous at

so critical an hour. Fulviac thrust forward the wheels of war with a

heavy hand. The torrents of sedition and discontent were converging to

a river of revolt, that threatened to crush tyranny as an avalanche

crushes a forest.

The Virgin with her moon-white face still inspired Yeoland with the

visionary behest given in the ruined chapel. The girl's fingers toiled

at the scarlet banner; she spent half her days upon her knees, devout as

any Helena. She knew Fulviac's schemes as surely as she did the beads

on her rosary. The rough rangers of the forest held her to be a saint,

and knelt to touch her dress as she passed by.

Yet what are dreams but snowflakes drifting from the heavens, now white,

now red, as God or man carries the lamp of love? The girl's ecstasy of

faith was but a potion to her, dazing her from a yet more subtle dream.

A faint voice summoned her from the unknown. She would hear it often in

the silence of the night, or at full noon as she faltered in her

prayers. The rosary would hang idle on her wrist, the crucifix melt

from her vision. She would find her heart glowing like a rose at the

touch of the sun. Anon, frightened, she would shake the human half of

herself, and run back penitent to her prayers.

It was springtide and the year's youth, when memories are garlanded with

green, and romance scatters wind-flowers over the world. Many voices

awoke, like the chanting of birds, in Yeoland's heart. She desired,

even as a swallow, to see the old haunts again, to go a pilgrim to the

place where the dear dead slept. Was it yearning grief, or a joy more

subtle, the cry of the wild and the voice of desire? Mayhap white

flowers shone on the tree of life, prophetic of fruit in the mellow

year. Jaspar the harper heard her plea; 'twas wilful and eager, but

what of that! Fulviac, good man, had ridden to Gilderoy. The girl had

liberty enough and to spare. She took it and Jaspar, and rode out from

the cliff.

Threading the sables of the woods, they came one noon to the open moor.

It was golden with the western sun, solitary as the sea. The shadows

were long upon the sward when Cambremont wood billowed out in its

valley. There was no hope of their reaching the tower before dusk, so

they piled dead bracken under a cedar, where the shelving eaves swept to

the ground.

They were astir early upon the morrow, a sun-chastened wind inspiring

the woodlands, and sculpturing grand friezes from the marbles of the

sky. The forest was full of the glory of Spring, starred with anemones

and dusted with the azure campaniles of the hyacinth horde. Primroses

lurked on the lush green slopes. In the glades, the forest peristyles,

green gorse blazed with its constellations of gold.

To the dolt and the hag the world is nothing but a fat larder; only the

unregenerate are blind of soul. Beauty, Diana-like, shows not her naked

loveliness to all. The girl Yeoland's eyes were full of a strange

lustre that May morning. Many familiar landmarks did she pass upon the

way, notched deep on the cross of memory. There stood the great beech

tree where Bertrand had carved his name, and the smooth bark still bore

the scars where the knife had wantoned. She forded the stream where

Roland's pony had once pitched him into the mire. Her eyes grew dim as

she rode through the sun-steeped woods.

The day had drawn towards noon when they neared the glade in the midst

of Cambremont wood. Heavy wain wheels had scarred the smooth green of

the ride, and the newly-sawn pedestals of fallen oaks showed where

woodmen had been felling timber. To Jaspar the harper these signs were

more eloquent of peril than of peace. He began to snuff the air like an

old hound, and to jerk restless glances at the girl at his side.

"See where wheels have been," he began.

"And axes, my friend."

"What means it?"

"Some one rebuilds the tower."

The harper wagged his head and half turned his horse from the grass

ride.

"Have a care," he said.

"Hide in the woods if you will."

She rode on with a triumphant wilfulness and he followed her.

As they neared the glade, the noise of axe and hammer floated on the

wind, and they saw the scene flicker towards them betwixt the great

boles of the trees. The tower stood with battlements of fresh white

stone; its windows had been reset, the blasting touch of fire effaced

from the walls. The glade was strewn with blocks of stone and lengths

of timber; the walls of a chapel were rising from the grass. Men were

digging trenches for the foundations of the priest's cell. Soldiers

idled about gossiping with the masons.

There was a smile in the girl's eyes and a deeper tint upon her cheeks

as she stared betwixt the trees at the regarnished tower. Those grey

eyes had promised the truth in Fulviac's cavern. She was glad in her

heart of the man's honour, glad with a magic that made her colour. As

for the harper, he stroked his grey beard and was mute. He lacked

imagination, and was no longer young.

On a stump of an oak tree at the edge of the wood sat a man in a black

mantle and a habit of white cloth. He had a panel upon his knee, and a

small wooden chest beside him on the grass. His eyes were turned often

to the rolling woods, as his plump hand flourished a brush with nervous

and graceful gestures.

Seeing the man's tonsure, and his dress that marked him a Dominican,

Yeoland rode out from the trees, casting her horse's shadow athwart his

work. The man looked up with puckered brow, his keen eye framing the

girl's figure at a glance. It was his destiny to see the romantic and

the beautiful in all things.

The priest and the girl on the horse eyed each other a moment in

silence. Each was instinctively examining the other. The churchman,

with an approving glint of the eye, was the first to break the woodland

silence.

"Peace be with you, madame."

His tone hinted at a question, and the girl adopted therewith an

ingenuous duplicity.

"My man and I were of a hunting party," she said; "we went astray in the

wood. You, Father, will guide us?"

"Madame has not discovered to me her desire."

"We wish for Gilderoy."

Balthasar rose and pointed with his brush towards the ride by which they

had come. He mapped the road for them with sundry jaunty flourishes,

and much showing of his white teeth. Yeoland thanked him, but was still

curious.

"Ah, Father, whither have we wandered?"

"Men call it Cambremont wood, madame."

"And these buildings? A retreat, doubtless, for holy men."

Balthasar corrected her with much unction.

"The Lord Flavian of Avalon builds here," he said, "but not for monks.

I, madame, am his architect, his pedagogue in painting."

Yeoland pretended interest. She craned forward over her horse's neck

and looked at the priest's panel. The act decided him. Since she was

young and comely, Balthasar seized the chance of a chivalrous service.

The girl had fine eyes, and a neck worthy of a Venus.

"Madame has taste. She would see our work?"

Madame appeared very ready to grant the favour. Balthasar put his

brushes aside, held the girl's stirrup, and, unconscious of the irony of

the act, expatiated to Yeoland on the beauties of her own home. At the

end of their pilgrimage, being not a little bewitched by such eyes and

such a face, he begged of her the liberty of painting her there and

then. 'Twas for the enriching of religious art, as he very properly put

it.

Dead Rual's grave was not ten paces distant, and Jaspar was standing by

it as in prayer. Thus, Yeoland sat to Fra Balthasar, oblivious of him

indeed as his fingers brought her fair face into being, her shapely

throat and raven hair. His picture perfected, he blessed her with the

unction of a bishop, and stood watching her as she vanished down the

southern ride, graceful and immaculate as a young Dian.

XV

Hardly had an hour passed, and Fra Balthasar was still touching the

study he had made of Yeoland's face, when a company of spears flashed

out by the northern ride into the clearing. At their head rode a knight

in harness of burnished steel, a splendid figure flashing chivalry in

the eyes of the sun. On his shield he bore "a castle, argent, with

ports voided of the field, on a field vert," the arms of the house of

Gambrevault. His surcoat was diapered azure and green with three gold

suns blazoned thereon. His baldric, a splendid streak of scarlet silk,

slashed his surcoat as with blood. His troop, men in half armour, rode

under the Pavon Vert of the demesne of Avalon.

They thundered into the open stretch of grass with a clangorous rattle

of steel. Flavian, bare-headed, for his salade hung at his saddle-bow

and he wore no camail, scanned the glade with a keen stare. Seeing Fra

Balthasar seated under a tree, he turned his horse towards him, and

smiled as the churchman put his tools aside and gave him a benediction.

The man made a fine figure; judged by the flesh, Balthasar might have

stood for an Ambrose or a Leo.

"Herald of heaven, how goes the work?"

"Sire, we emulate Pericles."

"What have you there, a woman's head, some rare Madonna?"

Balthasar showed his white teeth.

"A pretty pastoral, messire. The study of a lady who had lost her way

hunting, and craved my guidance this morning. A woman with the face and

figure of a Dian."

"Ha, rogue of the brush, let us see it."

Balthasar passed the parchment into the other's hand. Flavian stared at

it, flushed to the temples, rapped out an ejaculation in ecclesiastic

Latin. His eyes devoured the sketch with the insatiable enthusiasm of a

lover; words came hot off his tongue.

"Quick, man, quick, is this true to life?"

"As ruby to ruby."

"None of your idealisations?"

"Messire, but an hour ago that girl was sitting her horse where your

destrier now stands."

"And you sketched this at her desire?"

"At my own, sire; it was courtesy for courtesy: I had shown her our

handiwork here."

"You showed her this tower and chapel?"

"Certainly, sire."

"She seemed sad?"

"Nay, merry."

"This is romance!" He lifted the little picture at arm's length to the

sun, kissed it, and put it in his bosom. His face was radiant; he

laughed as though some golden joy rang and resounded in his heart.

"A hundred golden angels for this face!"

Fra Balthasar was in great measure mystified. The Lord of Avalon seemed

an inflammable gentleman.

"Messire, you are ever generous."

"Man, man, you have caught the one woman in the world."

"Sire----"

"The Madonna of the Pine Forest, the Madonna of Mercy; she whose

kinsfolk were put to the sword by my men; even the daughter of Rual

whose tower stands yonder."

The priest comprehended the whole in a moment. The dramatic quaintness

of the adventure had made him echo Flavian's humour. He laughed and

shrugged his shoulders.

"Romance, romance! By all the lovers who ever loved, by Tristan and the

dark Iseult, by Launcelot and Guinivere, follow that picture."

"Which way went she?"

"By the southern ride, towards Gilderoy."

The man was in heroic humour; his sword flashed out and shook in the

sun.

"By God, I'll see her face again, and yet again, though I burn in hell

for it. Roland, Godamar, come, men, come, throw away your spears.

Ride, ride, we chase the sunset. Life and desire!"

He sprang away on his great bay horse, a shimmering shaft of

youth--youth that flashed forth chivalry into the burgeoning green of

Spring. The sunlight webbed his hair with gold; his face glowed like a

martyr's. Balthasar watched him with much poetic zest, as he swept away

with his thundering knights into the woods.

The friar settled to his work again, but it was fated that he was to

have no lasting peace that morning. He was painting in a background, a

landscape, to a small Crucifixion. His hand was out of touch, however;

the subject was not congenial. A pale face and a pair of dusky eyes had

deepened a different stream of thought in the man. Themes hypersensuous

held his allegiance; from prim catholic ethics, he reverted to his

glorious paganism with an ever-broadening sense of satisfaction.

He was interrupted once more, and not unpleasantly, by a lady, with two

armed servants at her back, riding in from the forest by the northern

ride. The woman was clad in a cloak of damask red, and a jupon of dark

green, broidered with azure scroll work. Her hood, fallen back, showed

her purple black hair bound up in a net of gold. Her large dark eyes

flashed and smouldered under their long lashes. She had high

cheek-bones, a big nose, lips full as an over-ripe rose. She was big of

body, voluptuous to look upon, as an Eastern odalisque, a woman of great

passions, great appetites.

Fra Balthasar tumbled his brushes and paints aside, and went to meet her

as she rode over the grass. There was a smile on the man's lips, a

flush upon his sleek face, as he walked with a courtly and debonair

vanity. The woman caught sight of him and wheeled her horse in his

direction. The autumn splendour of her cheeks told of hard riding, and

her horse dropped foam from his black muzzle.

Fra Balthasar crossed himself with much meekness.

"Good greeting, Madame Duessa," were his words, as he kept his eyes on

the ground.

The woman scanned the glade with the strenuous spirit of a Boadicea.

"My Lord Flavian?"

"Madame?"

"He has been here."

"But is here no longer."

"These buildings?"

"Are the Lord Flavian's."

"And you?"

"I am his architect."

"Morally, messire monk?"

"Madame, I do not edificate souls."

The woman stared him over with a critical comprehensiveness.

"Balthasar."

The man half glanced at her.

"Look me in the face."

He gave a sigh, made a gesture with his hands, looked melancholy and

over-ecstasied to the point of despair.

"Madame, there are thoughts beyond one's liberty."

"Well?"

"There are women, a woman, one dares not look upon. There are eyes,

well--well, that are too bright. Pardon me, I would serve you."

She took a deep breath, held out her hand to him, a big, warm hand, soft

and white. The man's lips burnt upon it. She touched his cheek and saw

him colour.

"Well?"

"My Lord Flavian is not here."

"But has been. Where now?"

"Away hunting."

"Ha, what?"

"Madame, what do men hunt and burn for?"

"Sometimes a stag, a hare, a standard, a woman."

"Sometimes--a woman."

Balthasar, looking slantwise under half-closed lids, saw her eyes flash

and her lips tighten.

"Which way?"

"The southern ride, towards Gilderoy."

Duessa shook her bridle, and threw one look into Balthasar's eyes.

"Remember," she said, "remember, a woman loves a friend, a true friend,

who can tell a lie, or keep a secret."

Balthasar watched her ride away. He stood and smiled to himself, while

his long fingers played with the folds of his mantle. Red wine was

bounding in his blood, and his imagination revelled. He was a poetic

person, and a poet's soul is often like tinder, safe enough till the

spark falls.

"_Gloria_," he said to himself with a smirk, "here's hunting with a

vengeance. Two women and a man! The devil is loose. Soul of Masaccio,

that woman has fine eyes."

That day, when the sky was growing red over the woods, Flavian and his

troop drew close on the heels of Yeoland and the harper. The man, for

all his heat, had kept his horse-flesh well in hand. Once out of

Cambremont wood, they had met a charcoal-burner, who had seen Yeoland

and her follower pass towards the west. They had hunted fast over fell

and moor. While not two miles behind came Duessa of the Black Hair,

biting her lips and giving her brute lash and spur with a woman's

viciousness.

Yeoland, halting on a slope above the pine woods, looked back and saw

something that made her crane her neck and wax vigilant. Out of the

wine-red east and the twilight gloom came the lightning of harness, the

galloping gleam of armed men. Jaspar's blear eyes were unequal to the

girl's. The men below were riding hard, half under the lea of the

midnight pines, whose tops touched the sunset. A half-moon of steel,

their crescent closed wood and moor. They had the lead in the west;

they were mounting the slope behind.

Jaspar saw them at last. He was for galloping. Yeoland held him in.

"Fool, we are caught. Sit still. We shall gain nothing by bolting."

A knight was coming up the slope at a canter. Yeoland saw his shield,

read it and his name. She went red under her hood, felt her heart

beating, wondered at its noise.

Youth, aglitter in arms, splendid, triumphant! A face bare to the west,

eyes radiant and tender, a great horse reined in on its haunches, a

mailed hand that made the sign of the cross!

"Madame, your pardon."

He drew Balthasar's picture from his bosom and held it before her eyes.

"My torch," he said, "that led me to see your face again."

The girl was silent. Her head was thrown back, her slim throat showing,

her face turned heavenwards like the face of a woman who is kissed upon

the lips.

"You have seen your home?"

"Yes, messire."

"God pardon me your sorrow. You see I am no hypocrite. I keep my

vows."

"Yes, messire."

"Madame, let me be forgiven; you have trusted one man, trust another."

She turned her horse suddenly and began to ride towards the black maw of

the forest. Her lips were tightly closed, and she looked neither to the

right nor the left. Flavian, a tower of steel, was at her side. Armed

men ranged in a circle about them. They opened ranks at a sign from

their lord, and gave the woman passage.

"Madame----"

"Messire----"

"Am I to be forgiven?"

She was mute a moment, as in thought. Then she spoke quietly enough.

"Yes, for a vow."

"Tell it me."

"If you will never see my face again."

He looked at her with a great smile, drew his sword, and held the point

towards her.

"Then give me hate."

"Messire!"

"Hate, not forgiveness, hate, utter and divine, that I may fight and

travail, labour and despair."

"Messire!"

"Hate me, hate me, with all the unreason of your heart. Hate me a

hundred times, that I may but leap a hundred times into your life. Bar

me out that I may storm your battlements again and again."

"Are you a fool?"

"A glorious, mad, inspired fool."

They were quite near the trees. Their black masses threw a great shadow

over the pair. Higher still the sky burnt.

"Madame, whither do you go?"

"Where you may not venture, messire."

"God, I know no such region."

She flashed round on him with sudden bitterness.

"Go back to your wife. Go back to your wife, messire; remember her

honour."

It was a home-thrust, but it did not shame or weaken him. He sheathed

his sword, and looked at her sadly out of his grey eyes.

"What a world is this," he said, "when heaven comes at last, hell yawns

across the path. When summer burns, winter lifts its head. Even as a

man would grow strong and pure, his own cursed shackles cumber him.

To-night I say no more to you. Go, madame, pray for me. You shall see

my face again."

He let life vanish under the pines, and rode back with the sunset on his

armour, his face staring into the rising night. His men came round him,

silent statues of steel. He rode slowly, and met his wife.

Her eyes were turbulent, her lips red streaks of scorn.

"Ha, sire, I have found you."

"Madame, I trust you are well?"

They looked at each other askance like angry dogs, as they rode side by

side, and the night came down. The men left them to themselves, and went

on ahead. A wind grew gusty over the moor.

[Illustration: "THEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER ASKANCE LIKE ANGRY DOGS."]

"Messire, I have borne enough from you."

"Madame, is it fault of mine?"

His whole soul revolted from her with an immensity of hate. She

cumbered, clogged, crushed him. Mad brutality leapt in his heart

towards her. He could have smitten the woman through with his sword.

"Five years ago----" she said.

"You did the wooing. Damnation, we have been marvellously happy."

She bit her lip and was white as the moon.

"Have a care, messire, have a care."

"Threats, threats."

"Have a care----"

"Look at my shield. Have I quartered your arms with mine? God's blood,

there is nothing to erase."

"Ha!"

"We have no children."

"Go on."

"I shall send gold and an embassage to the Pope."

She clenched her hands and could not speak for the moment.

"You dare do this?"

"I dare ten thousand greater things than this."

"By God, messire."

"By God, woman, am I going down to hell because you are my wife!"

She grew quiet very suddenly, a dangerous move in a woman.

"Very well," she said, "try it, dear lord. I am no fool. Try it, I am

as strong as you."

And so they rode on towards Avalon together.

XVI

It is impossible for two persons of marked individuality to be much

together without becoming more or less faceted one towards the other.

We appeal by sympathy, and inspire by contrast. What greater glory

falls to a man's lot than to be chastened by the warm May of some girl's

pure heart! Yeoland had felt the force of Fulviac's manhood; the more

eternal and holier instincts were being stirred in him by a woman's

face.

The man's life had been a transmigration. In his younger days the world

had banqueted him; new poignancies had bubbled against his lips in the

cup of pleasure. Later had come that inevitable weariness, that distaste

of pomp, the mood that discovers vanity in all things. Finally he had

set his heart upon a woman, a broken reed indeed, and had discovered her

a hypocrite, according to the measure of her passions. There had been

one brief burst of blasphemy. He had used his dagger and had

disappeared. There had been much stir at the time. A ruby had fallen

from the King's crown. Some spoke of Palestine, others of a monastery,

others of a cubit of keen steel.

Fulviac had begun life over again. He had fallen back upon elemental

interests--had gone hungry, fought for his supper, slept many a storm

out under a tree. The breath of the wilderness had winnowed out luxury;

rain had scourged him into philosophic hardihood. He had learnt in

measure that nothing pleases and endures like simplicity. Even his

ambition was simple in its audacious grandeur.

Now the eyes of the daughter of Rual were like the eyes of a Madonna,

and she stood in a circle of white lilies like the spirit of purity.

Fulviac had begun to believe in her a little, to love her a little. She

stood above all other women he had known. The ladies of the court were

superb and comely, and marvellously kind, but they loved colour and

contemned the robe of white. They were like a rich posy for a man to

choose from, scarlet and gold, azure, damask or purple. You could love

their bodies, but you could not trust their souls.

As for the girl Yeoland, she was very devout, very enthusiastic, but no

Agnes. Her rosary had little rest, and with the suspicions of one not

utterly sure of herself, she had striven to make religion and its

results satisfy her soul. In some measure she had succeeded. Yet there

is ever that psychic echo, that one mysterious being, subtle as the

stars, that may come before Christ in the heart. Transcendent spirit of

idolatry! And yet it is often heaven-sent, seeing that it leads many a

soul to God.

It had become Yeoland's custom to walk daily in the pine wood at the

foot of the stairway leading from the northern room. She had discovered

a quaint nook, a mile or more from the cliff, a nook where trees stood

gathered in a dense circle about a grassy mound capped by a square of

mouldering stone. It was a grave, nameless and without legend. Perhaps

a hermit had crumbled away there under the sods, or the bones of some

old warrior slept within rusty harness. None knew, none cared greatly.

Fulviac's men had hinted at treasure, yet even they were kept from

desecrating the place by a crude and superstitious veneration for the

dead.

She had wandered here one day and had settled herself on the grassy

slope of the grave. The ribbon of her lute lay over her shoulder. A

breeze sang fitfully through the branches, and a golden haze shimmered

down as from the clerestory windows of a cathedral. Her lute seemed sad

when it made answer to her fingers. Thought was plaintive and not

devotional, if one might judge by the mood of the music, and the notes

were wayward and pathetically void of discipline.

It was while the girl thrummed idly at the strings that a vague sound

floated down to her with the momentary emphasis born of a fickle wind.

It was foreign to the forest, or it would not have roused her as it did.

As she listened the sound came again from the west. It was neither the

distant bay of a hound nor a horn's solitary note. There was something

metallic about it, something musical. When it disappeared, she listened

for its recurrence; when she heard it again, she puzzled over its

nature.

The sound grew clearer at gradual intervals, and then ceased utterly.

The girl listened for a long while to no purpose, and then prepared to

forget the incident. The decision was premature. She was startled anon

by the sound breaking out at no great distance. There was no doubt as

to its nature: it was the clanging of a bell.

Yeoland wondered who could be carrying such a thing in such a place.

Possibly some of Fulviac's men were coming home with stolen cattle, and

an old bell-wether from some wild moorland with them.

The sound of the bell came very near; it seemed close amid the circling

ranks of pines. Twigs were cracking too, and she heard the beat of

approaching footsteps. Then her glance caught something visible, a

streak of white in the shadows, moving like a ghost. The thing went amid

the trees with the bell mute. The girl's doubts were soon set at rest

as to whether she had been seen or no. The figure in grey slipped

between the pines, and came out into the grass circle about the grave,

cowled, masked, bell at girdle, a leper.

The girl stared at it with a cold flutter at her heart. The thing stood

under the boughs motionless as stone. The bell gave never a tinkle; a

white chin poked forward from under the hood; the masked face was in

shadow. Then the bell jangled, and a gruff voice came from the cowl.

"Unclean, unclean!" it said; "avoid the white death, and give alms."

Yeoland obeyed readily enough, put a portion of the grave betwixt

herself and the leper, fumbled in her pouch and threw the man a piece of

silver. He came forward suddenly into the light, fell on his knees, put

his hood back, plucked off the mask.

It was the face of the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault.

The girl stood and stared at him with unstinted astonishment.

"You," she said, "you?"

"Madame, I said that you should see my face again."

She conceived a sudden impetuous desire to turn and leave him on his

knees, but some inner potency of instinct restrained her. She looked

down at the man, with no kindling kindness upon her face. She did not

know what to say to him, how to tune her mood. The first thought that

rushed into her mind was seized upon and pressed into service,

discretion or no discretion.

"Madman, they will kill you if they find you here."

"No woman ever loved a coward."

"For Heaven's sake, go away."

He rose from his knees and lifted up his frock. The girl saw harness

and a sword beneath it. This young leopard of the southern shores had

fettle enough, and spirit. He was a mixture of imperturbable

determination and sanguine Quixotism, as he faced her under the trees.

"This dress is privileged; my bell warns folk away; who would fall foul

of a miserable leper? If this frock fails me, I have my sword."

She looked at him with the solemnity of a child, hand folded in hand.

"I cannot understand you," she said.

"Not yet."

"Are you the man whose life I saved? That breath of death on your brow,

messire, should have made you thoughtful of your soul."

"Let me plead a moment."

"For what?"

"My honour."

"Why your honour?"

"Because I want you to believe that I have a soul."

He was vastly earnest, and his eyes followed her, as though she were

some being out of heaven. She had never seen such a look in a man's

eyes before; it troubled her. She questioned her own heart, laughed

emptily, and gave in to him.

"We are both mad," she said, "but go on. I will listen for one minute.

Keep watch lest any one should come upon us suddenly."

She sat down on the grass bank, while he stood before her, holding his

lazar bell by the clapper.

"Look at this dress," he said.

"Yes?"

"It is how I feel in soul when I look at you."

She frowned visibly.

"If you wax personal, messire, I shall leave you."

"No, no, I will keep to my own carcase, and play the egotist. Well, I

will be brief. Look at me, I am the first lord in the south, master of

an army, one of the twelve knights of the Order of the Rose."

"Go on."

"When I was twenty years old, certain clever people found me a wife, a

woman five years my senior in time, twenty years my superior in

knowledge of the world. Well, six months had not passed before I hated

her, hated her with my whole soul. My God, what a thing for a boy to

begin life with a woman who made him half the bounden vassal of the

devil!"

"You seem generous. The faults were all on her side."

"Madame, I say nothing against the woman, only that she had no soul. We

were incompatible as day and night, fire and water. The thing crushed

the youth out of me, made me desperate, and worse, made me old beyond my

years. I have done my best. I have groped along like a man in the

dark, knowing nothing, understanding nothing, save that I had a warm

heart in me, and that life seemed one grim jest. The future had no fire

for me; I drank the wine of the present, strove to please my senses,

plunged into the abysses of the world. Sometimes I tried to pray.

Sometimes I played the cynic. The eternal beacon of love had gone out

of my life. I had no sun, no inspiration for my soul."

She sprang up suddenly, breathing fast like one who is near tears.

"Why do you speak to me of this?"

"God knows."

His voice was utterly lonely.

"What am I to you? You have hardly seen me three hours in your life.

Why do you speak to me of this?"

He put a hand to his throat, and did not look at her.

"Madame, there are people who come near our hearts in one short hour,

people who are winter to us to eternity. Do not ask me to explain this

truth; as Christ's death, I know it to be true. I trust you. All the

logicians of the world could not tell me why. I do not know that I

could bring forward one single reason out of my own soul, save that you

showed me great mercy once. And now--and now----"

He broke down suddenly, and could not speak. Yeoland appealed to him

out of the quickness of her fear.

"Messire, messire, your promise."

"Let me speak, or I stifle."

"Go, for God's sake, go!"

He flung his hands towards her with a great outburst of passion.

"Heaven and God's throne, you shall hear me to the end. Woman, woman,

my soul flows to you as the sea ebbs to the moon; deep in the sky a new

sun burns; the stars are dust, dust blown from the coffins of the dead

who loved. Life leaps in me like another chaos. All my heart glows like

an autumn orchard, and I burn. The world is red with a myriad roses.

God's in the heaven, Christ bleeds on quaking Calvary."

She ran to him suddenly and seized his wrist.

"GO----!"

"I cannot."

"Men are coming, I hear them in the woods, they will kill you!"

"I hear them too."

"Go, go, for my sake and for God's."

He kissed her sleeve, pulled his cowl down, and fled away into the

woods.

XVII

The Lady Duessa stood in the chapel of water-girded Avalon, with Fra

Balthasar the Dominican beside her. She had slipped in without his

noticing her, and had watched him awhile in silence at his work. The

jingling of her chatelaine had brought him at last to a consciousness of

her presence. Now they stood together before the high altar and looked

at the Madonna seated on her throne of gold, amid choirs of angel women.

The Lady Duessa's intelligence had waxed critical on the subject.

"You have altered the Virgin's face," she said.

Balthasar stared at his handiwork and nodded.

"The former has been erased, the latter throned in her stead."

The words had more significance for the lady than the friar had perhaps

intended. A better woman would have snubbed him for his pains. As it

was, he saw her go red, saw the tense stare of her dark eyes, the

tightening of the muscles of her jaw. She had a wondrous strong jaw,

had the Lady Duessa. She was no mere puppet, no bright-eyed, fineried

piece of plasticity. Fra Balthasar guessed the hot, passionate power of

her soul; she was the very woman for the rough handling of a cause, such

as the Lord Flavian her husband had roused against her.

"I suppose," she said, "this alteration was a matter of art, Balthasar?"

"A matter of heart, madame."

"So?"

"My Lord Flavian commanded it."

"And yonder face is taken from life?"

"Madame, I leave the inference to your charity."

She laughed a deep, cynical laugh, and went wandering round the chapel,

looking at the frescoes, and swinging a little poniard by the chain that

linked it to her girdle. Balthasar made a pretence of mixing colours on

his palette. Worldly rogue that he was, he knew women, especially women

of the Lady Duessa mould. He had a most shrewd notion as to what was

passing in her mind. Morally, he was her abettor, being a person who

could always take a woman's part, provided she were pretty. He believed

women had no business with religion. To Balthasar, like fine glass,

their frailty was their most enhancing characteristic. It gave such

infinite scope to a discreet confessor.

The Lady Duessa strolled back again, and stood by the altar rails.

"Am I such a plain woman?" she asked.

"Madame!"

"You have never painted me."

"There are people above the artist's brush."

"But you paint the Madonna."

"Madame, the Madonna is anybody's property."

"Am I?"

"God forbid that a poet should speak lightly of beauty."

She laughed again, and touching her hair with her fingers, scanned

herself in a little mirror that she carried at her girdle.

"Tell me frankly, am I worth painting?"

"Madame, that purple hair, those splendid eyes, the superb colour of

those cheeks, would blaze out of a golden background as out of heaven."

She gave a musical little titter.

"Heaven, heaven, ha--ha."

"I should be grateful for so transcendent a chance."

"And you would do me justice?"

"Where inspiration burns, there art soars."

"You would be true?"

"To the chiselling of a coral ear."

"And discreet?"

"To the curve of a lip."

"And considerate?"

"My hands are subtle."

"And your heart?"

"Is ingenuous as a little child's."

She laughed again, and held out her hands. Balthasar kissed the white

fingers, crowded with their gems. His eyes were warm as water in the

sun; the colours and the glimmering richness of the chapel burnt into

his brain.

"You shall paint me," she said.

"Here, madame, here?"

"No, my own bower is pleasanter. You can reach it by my Lord Flavian's

stair in the turret. Here is the key; he never uses it now. Avalon has

not seen him these six days."

"Madame, I will paint you as man never painted woman before."

Dame Duessa's bower was a broad chamber on the western walls, joining

the south-western tower. A great oriel, jewelled with heraldic glass,

looked over the mere with its dreaming lilies, over the green meadows to

the solemn silence of the woods.

Calypso's grotto! The bower of a luxurious lady in a luxurious age!

The snuff of Ind and Araby tingled in Balthasar's nostrils. The silks

of China and Bagdad, the cloths of Italy, bloomed there; flowers crowded

the window, the couches, every nook. Blood-red hangings warmed the

walls.

The Lady Duessa sat to Balthasar in the oriel, with her lute upon her

bosom. She was in azure and violet, with neck and bosom showing under a

maze of gossamer gold. Her arms were bare to the shoulder, white,

gleaming arms, subtle, sinuous, voluptuous. Her hair had been powdered

with gold. Her lips were wondrous red, her eyes dark as wells. Musk

and lavender breathed from her samites; her girdle glowed with precious

stones.

Fra Balthasar sat on a stool inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. An

embroidery frame served him as an easel. The man was living under the

many-constellationed vault of beauty. All the scent and floweriness of

the room played on his brain; all the wealth of it pandered to his art;

all the woman's splendour made molten wax of his being.

As he painted she sang to him, an old lay of Arthurian love, so that he

might catch the music in her eyes, and watch the deep notes gathering in

her throat. He saw her bosom sway beneath her lace, saw the inimitable

roundness of her arms. Often his brush lingered. He might gaze upon

the woman as he would, drink her beauty like so much violet wine, open

his soul to the opulent summer of her power. His heart was in a sunset

mood; he lived the life of a poet.

"And the green spring grew subtle," sang the dame,

"With song of birds and laughter, and the woods

Were white for maying. So fair Guinivere

Loosed her long hair like rivulets of gold

That stream from the broad casement of the dawn.

And her sweet mouth was like one lovely rose,

And her white bosom like a bowl of flowers;

So wandered she with Launcelot, while the wind

Blew her long tresses to him, and her eyes

Were as the tender azure of the night."

Of such things sang Duessa, while the friar spread his colours.

And then she questioned him.

"Love you the old legends, Balthasar?"

"Madame, as I love life."

"Ah! they could love in those old days."

"Madame, men can love even now."

She put her lute aside, and knelt upon the couch before the window, with

her elbows on the cushioned sill. Her silks swept close upon her

shapely back, her shoulders gleamed under her purple hair. In the west

the world grew red; the crimson kisses of the sunset poured upon the

ecstasied green woods. The mere was flaked with a myriad amber scales.

The meadows broidered their broad laps with cowslips, as with dust of

gold.

"Balthasar."

"Madame?"

"Look yonder at the sunset. You must be tired of gazing on my face."

He rose up like one dazed--intoxicated by colours, sounds, and odours.

Duessa's hand beckoned him. He went and knelt on the couch at her side,

and looked out over the flaming woods.

"And the other woman?" she said.

"The other woman?"

"This Madonna of my lord's chapel."

"Yes?"

"She amuses me; I am not jealous; what is jealousy to me? Tell me about

her, Balthasar; no doubt it is a pretty tale, and you know the whole."

"I, madame?"

"I, Duessa."

"But----"

"You are my Lord Flavian's friend; he was ever a man to be garrulous: he

has been garrulous to you. Tell me the whole tale."

"Duessa!"

"Better, better, my friend."

She put her hands upon his shoulders, and stared straight into his eyes.

Her lips overhung his like ripe red fruit. Her arms were fragrant of

myrrh and violet; her bosom was white as snow under the moon.

"Can you refuse me this?"

"God, madame, I can refuse you nothing."

XVIII

The girl Yeoland saw nothing of the leper for a season. For several days

she did not venture far into the pine forest, and the nameless grave

heard not the sound of her lute. The third night after the incident, as

she lay in her room under her canopy of purple cloth, she heard

distinctly the silver clangour of a bell floating up through the

midnight silence. She lay as still as a mouse, and scarcely drew

breath, for fear the man in grey should venture up the stairway. The

casement was open, with a soft June air blowing in like peace. The bell

continued to tinkle, but less noisily, till it vanished into silence.

Other folk from the cliff had seen the leper, and Yeoland could not

claim to have monopolised the gentleman. One of Fulviac's fellows had

seen him one morning near the cliff, gliding like a grey ghost among the

pines. Another had marked him creeping swiftly away through the

twilight. It was a superstitious age and a superstitious region. The

figure in grey seemed to haunt the place, with the occasional and

mournful sounding of its bell. Men began to gossip, as the ignorant

always will. Fulviac himself grew uneasy for more material reasons, and

contemplated the test of a clothyard shaft or a bolt upon the leper's

body. The man might be a spy, and if the bolt missed its mark it would

at least serve as a sinister hint to this troublesome apparition.

It was then that Yeoland took alarm into her woman's heart. There was

great likelihood of the man ending his days under the tree with a shaft

sticking fast between his shoulders. Though he was something of a

madman, she did not relish such a prospect. The day after she had heard

the bell at midnight near the stair she haunted the forest like a pixie,

keeping constant watch between the cliff and the forest grave. Fulviac

had ridden out on a plundering venture, and she was free of him for the

day.

It was not till evening that she heard the faint signal of the bell,

creeping down through the gold-webbed boughs like the sound of a distant

angelus. The sound flew from the north, and beckoned her towards the

forest grave. Fearful of being caught, she followed it as fast as her

feet could carry her, while the deepening clamour led her on. Presently

she called the man by name as she ran. His grey frock and cowl came

dimly through the trees.

"At last you are merciful," was his greeting.

She stood still and twisted her gown restlessly between her two hands.

Anarchy showed in her face; fear, reason, and desire were calling to her

heart. The intangible touch of the man's soul threw her being into

chaos. She feared greatly for him, stood still, and could say nothing.

Flavian put his cowl back, and stood aloof from her, looking in her

face.

"Seemingly we are both embarrassed," he said.

She made a petulant little gesture. He forestalled her in speech.

"It is best to be frank when life runs deep. I will speak the truth to

you, and you may treat me as you will."

Yeoland leant against a tree, and began to pull away the brittle scales

of the bark.

"If you stay here longer, messire----" she began.

"Well, madame, what then?"

"You will be shot like a dog; you are suspected; they are going to try

your leper's gown with a crossbow bolt."

The man smiled optimistically.

"And you came to tell me this?"

"Yes."

"I thank you."

The wind moved through the trees; a fir-cone came pattering through the

branches and fell at their feet. On the cliff a horn blared; its

throaty cry came echoing faintly through the trees.

Flavian looked towards the gold of the west. His mood was calm and

deliberate; he had his enthusiasms in leash for the moment, for there

were more mundane matters in his mind--matters that were not savoury,

however crimson shone the ideal years.

"I have thrown down the glove," he said, "for good or evil, honour or

dishonour. I will tell you the whole truth."

Yeoland, watching his face, felt her impatient dreads goad her to the

quick.

"Will you talk for ever?" she said to him.

"Take the core then. I am going to rend my bonds as I would rend flax.

I have appealed to the Church; I have poured out gold."

"To the point, messire."

"I shall divorce my wife."

He threw his head back, and challenged the world in her one person. Her

good favour was more to him than the patronage of Pope or King. It was

in his mind that she should believe the worst of him from the beginning,

so that in some later season he might not emulate Lucifer, toppled out

of the heaven of her heart. She should have the truth from the first,

and build her opinion of him on no fanciful basis. Even in this justice

to the more sinister side of his surroundings, he was an idealist,

thorough and enthusiastic.

"So you must understand, madame, that I am not without blemishes, not

without things that I myself would rather see otherwise. With me it is

a question of going to hell for a woman, or getting rid of her. Being

an egotist, I choose the latter alternative."

Yeoland still evaded his eyes.

"And the woman loves you?"

"Not an atom; she only cares to be called the Lady of Gambrevault,

Signoress of Avalon, the first dame in the south."

"Why do you tell me this?"

"Madame, have I need of more words? It is for this: that you might not

picture me as I am not, or form any false conception of me. I have

bared my moral skeleton to you. Perhaps you will never know what it

costs a man at times to make his mind as glass to the woman he honours

above the whole world."

"Well?"

"It is because I honour you that I have goaded myself to tell you the

whole truth."

Her verdict was more sudden and more human than he might have expected.

"Messire, you are a brave man," she said; "I believe I am beginning to

trust you."

The sky flamed into sunset; the tracery of the trees seemed webbed with

gold into shimmering domes and fans of quivering light. In the

distance, the great cliff stood out darkly from the scarlet caverns of

the west. The pine tops rose like the black spires of some vast city.

Above, floated clouds, effulgent mounts of fire, hurled from the abysmal

furnace of the sun.

Flavian came two steps nearer to the woman, leaning against the tree.

"Give me my due," he said; "I have uncovered the difficult workings of

my heart, I have shown you the inner man in his meaner mould. Suffer me

to speak of my manhood in godlier words. I have shown you Winter; let

me utter forth Spring."

Yeoland turned and faced him at last.

"You have risked your life and my honour long enough," she said, "I am

going back to the cliff."

"And I with you, as far as the stairway."

"To the threshold of death."

"What care I if I tread it at your side?"

She turned homewards with obstinate intent, and the mild hauteur of a

good woman. The man followed her, went with her step for step, looking

in her face.

"Hear my confession," he said; "you shall have it before you leave me.

For the sake of your honour, I hold my soul by the collar. But--but, I

shall win liberty, liberty. When I am free, ah, girl, girl, I shall

flash golden wings in the face of the sun. I shall soar to you that I

may look into your eyes, that I may touch your hands, and breathe the

warm summer of your soul. I want God, I want purity, I want the Eternal

peace, I want your heart. I have said the whole; think of me what you

will."

Twilight had gathered; all the violet calmness of the night came down

upon the world. Under the shadows of the tall trees, the girl was

deeply stirred beyond her own compassion. She halted, hesitated, went

suddenly near the man with her face turned heavenwards like a new-spread

flower. Her eyes were very wistful, and she spoke almost in a whisper.

"You have told me the whole truth, you have shown me your whole soul?"

"As I serve you, madame, I have kept nothing back."

"Ah, messire, I will speak to you the truth in turn. God be merciful to

me, but you have come strangely near my heart. These are bitter words

for my soul. Ah, messire, if you have any honour for me, trust me that I

aspire to heaven. I cannot suffer you to come deeper into my life."

The man held out his hands.

"Why, why?"

"Because in following me, you go innocently to your death."

He lifted up his arms, and leapt into heroics like an Apollo leaping

into a blood-red sky.

"What care I; you speak in riddles; can I fear death?"

"Messire, messire, it is the woman who fears. I tell you this, because,

because--God help me----"

She fled away, but that night he did not follow her.

XIX

As a wind sweeps clamorous into a wood, so Modred and his fellows,

household knights, streamed into the great hall of Avalon, where the

Lord Flavian sat at supper. Bearers of angry steel, fulminators of

vengeance, vociferous, strong, they poured in through the screens like a

mill race, bearing a tossed and impotent figure in their midst. Their

swords yelped and flashed over this bruised fragment of humanity.

A gauntlet of steel was dashed often into the white face. Hands clawed

his collar, clutched his body. Dragged, jerked onwards, buffeted,

beaten to his knees, he sank down before the Lord Flavian's chair, blood

streaming from his mouth and nostrils, specking his white habit,

drabbling the floor. Then only did the flashing, growling circle recede

like waves from a fallen rock.

Modred, a black man, burly, a bigot to honour, stood out a giant before

his fellows. His great sword quivered to the roof; his deep voice shook

the rafters.

"Blood, sire, blood."

The man in the white habit quailed, and held up his hands.

"Let me smite him as he kneels."

"Sirs, give me the courtesy of silence."

Flavian started from his chair and looked at the man, who knelt, huddled

into himself, at his feet. It was a scene replete with the grim

cynicism of life. Here was a man of mind and genius, cowering,

quivering before the strong wrath of a dozen muscular illiterates. Here

was the promulgator of bold truths, an utter dastard when the physical

part of him was threatened with dissolution. Not that this event was any

proof against the moral power of pagan self-reliance. Not that there

was any cause for the bleating of sanctimonious platitudes, or the

pointing of a proverb. A true churchman might have carved a fine moral

fable out of the reality. It would have been a fallacy. Fra Balthasar

was a coward. He had none of the splendid mental anatomy of a Socrates.

He would have played the coward even under the eye of Christ.

Silence had fallen. Far away, choked by the long throats of gallery and

stair, rose the wild, passionate screaming of a woman. It had the

rebellious, blasphemous agony of one flung into eternal fire. Without

modulation, abatement, or increase, malevolent, impotent, ferocious,

piteous, it pealed out in long, tempestuous bursts that swept into the

ears like some unutterable discord out of hell.

The kneeling man heard it, and seemed to contract, to shrink into

himself. His white habit was rent to the middle; his ashy face splashed

over with blood. He tottered and shook, his hands clasped over the nape

of his neck, for fear of the sword. His tongue clave to his palate; his

eyes were furtively fixed on the upreared yard of steel.

Torches and cressets flared. Servants stared and shouldered and gaped

in the screens; all the castle underlings seemed to have smelt out the

business like the rats they were. Modred's knights put them out with

rough words and the flat of the sword. The doors were barred. Only

Flavian, the priest, and Modred and his men took part in that tribunal

in the hall of Avalon.

Flavian stood and gazed on Balthasar, the man of tones and colours. The

Lord of Gambrevault was calm, unhurried, and dispassionate, yet not

unpleased. The man's infinite abasement and terror seemed to arrest him

like some superb precept from the lips of a philosopher. He had the air

of a man who calculates, the look of a diplomat whose scheme has worked

out well. From Balthasar he looked to Modred the Strong, the torchlight

lurid on his armour, his great sword quivering like a falcon to leap

down upon its prey. The distant screaming, somewhat fainter and less

resolute, still throbbed in his ears. He thought of Dante, and the

_bolgias_ of that superhuman singer.

Going close to the Dominican, he spoke to him in strong, yet not

unpitying tones. Balthasar dared not look above the Lord Flavian's

knees.

"Ha, my friend, where is all your fine philosophy?"

The man cringed like a beggar.

"Where are all your sonorous phrases, your pert blasphemies, your

subtleties, your fine tinsel of intellect and vanity?"

Balthasar had no word.

"Where is your godliness, my friend, where your glowing and superhuman

soul? Have we found you out, O Satanas; have we shocked your pagan

heroism? Be a man. Stand up and face us. You could hold forth roundly

on occasions. Even that Saul of Tarsus was not afraid of a sword."

Balthasar cowered, and hid his face behind his hands. He began to

whimper, to rock to and fro, to sob. The grim men round him laughed,

deep-chested, iron, scoffing laughter. Modred pricked the priest's neck

with the point of his sword. It was then that Balthasar fell forward

upon his face, senseless from sheer terror.

Flavian abandoned philosophic irony, and addressed himself to Modred and

his knights.

"Put up your swords, sirs; this man shall go free."

"Sire, sire!" came the massed cry.

"Trust my discretion. The fellow has done me the greatest service of my

life."

"Sire!"

"He has given me liberty. He has gnawed the shackles from my soul. You

are all my witnesses in this, and may count upon my gratitude. But this

man here, he has danced to my whim like a doll plucked by a string. For

my liberty has he sinned; out of Avalon shall he go scatheless."

The men still murmured. Modred shot home his sword into its scabbard

with a vicious snap. Flavian read their humour.

"Do not imagine, gentlemen," he said, "that your vigilance and your

loyalty to my honour can go unrewarded. Modred, your lands are heavily

mortgaged, I free you at a word, with this my signet. To you, Bertrand,

I give the Manor of Riesole to keep and hold for you and yours. To all

you, good friends, I give a hundred golden angels, man and man. And

now, sirs, as to madame, my wife."

They gathered round him in curious conclave, Balthasar lying in their

midst.

"Sir Modred, you will order out my state litter, set the Lady Duessa

therein, and have her borne with all courtesy to Gilderoy, to her

father's house. Then you will take these gentlemen who are my true

friends and witnesses, and you will ride to Lauretia, to make solemn

declaration before Bishop Hilary. He has already received my earlier

embassage. After this affair, we have no need of ethical subtleties and

clerical conveniences. You will obtain a dispensation at his hands.

_Ex vinculo matrimonii_. Nothing less than that."

They bowed to him and his commands, like the loyal gentlemen they were.

Modred pointed to the prostrate Balthasar, who was already squirming

back to consciousness, with his fingers feeling at his throat, as though

to discover whether it was still sound or no.

"And this fellow, sire?"

"Pick him up."

Balthasar had found his tongue at last. He was jerked to his feet, and

held up by force, with the handle of a poniard rammed into his mouth to

stem his garrulity.

Flavian read him an extemporary lecture. There was something like a

smile hovering about his lips.

"Go back to your missal, man, and forswear women. They are like strong

wine, too much for your flimsy brain. I have more pity for you than

censure. Say to yourself, when you patter your prayers, 'Flavian of

Gambrevault saved me from the devil once.' And yet, my good saint, I

have a shrewd notion that you will be just as great a fool two months

hence."

The man gave a scream of delight, and attempted to throw himself at

Flavian's feet. His superlative joy was almost ludicrous. Half a dozen

hands dragged him back.

"Take him away--who cares for such gratitude!"

As they marched him off, he broke like an imbecile into hysterical

laughter. Tears streamed from his eyes. He mopped his face with the

corner of his habit, laughed and snivelled, and sang snatches of tavern

ditties. So, with many a grim jest, they cuffed Fra Balthasar out of

Avalon.

At the end of the drama, Flavian called for tapers, and marched in state

to the chapel. He knelt before the altar and prayed to the Madonna,

whose face was the face of the girl Yeoland.

XX

"Fulviac, I cannot fasten all these buckles."

The man waited at the door of her room, and looked at her with a

half-roguish smile in his eyes.

She stood by the window in Gothic armour of a grandly simple type, no

Maximilian flutings, no Damascening, the simple Gothic at its grandest,

nothing more. Her breast-plate, with salient ridge, was blazoned over

with golden fleur-de-lis. The pauldrons were slightly ridged; vam-brace

and rere-brace were beautifully jointed with most quaint elbow-pieces.

She wore a great brayette, a short skirt of mail, but no tassets. In

place of cuishes, jambs, and solerets, she had a kirtle of white cloth,

and laced leather shoes. It was light work and superbly wrought;

Fulviac had paid many crowns for it from an armourer at Geraint.

Her beauty, mailed and cased in steel, seemed to shine upon the man with

a new glory. When he had played the armourer, she stood and looked at

him with a most conscious modesty, a warm colour in her cheeks, eyes

full of tremulous light, her masses of dark hair rolling down over her

blazoned cuirass. A hand and a half sword in a gilded scabbard, a rich

baldric, and a light bassinet lay on the oak table. Fulviac took the

sword, and belted it to her, and slung the baldric over her shoulder.

His hands moved through her dark hair. For a moment, her eyes trembled

up at him under their long lashes. He gave the helmet into her hands,

but she did not wear it.

A sudden gust of youth seized the man, an old strain of chivalry woke in

his heart. Grizzled and gaunt, he went on his knees in front of her and

held up his hands as in prayer. There was a warm light in his eyes.

"The Mother Virgin keep you, little woman. May all peril be far from

your heart, all trouble far from your soul. May my arm ever ward you, my

sword guard your womanhood. All the saints watch over you; may the

Spirit of God abide with you in my heart."

It was a true prayer, though Fulviac stumbled up from his knees, looking

much like an awkward boy. He was blushing under his tanned skin,

blushing, scarred and battered worldling that he was, for his heart

still showed gold to the knife of Time. Yeoland thought more of him

that moment than she had done these four months. A shadow passed over

her face, and she touched her forehead with her hand.

Fulviac, a far-away look in his eyes, was furling her great scarlet

banner upon its staff. Yeoland spoke to him over her shoulder.

"I am in your hands," she said.

Fulviac smoothed out a crease.

"What is your will, you have not yet enlightened me?"

He looked at her gravely for a moment.

"You are ours," he said, "a woman given to us by heaven," he hesitated,

as over a lie; "you are to shine out a star, a pillar of fire before the

host; every man who follows you will know your story; every man who

follows you will worship you in his heart. You will inspire us as no

mere man could inspire; your blood-red banner will wave on heroes,

patriots. You will play the comet with an army for your tail."

Some sudden emotion seemed to sweep over her. She stood motionless with

clasped hands, looking at her crucifix. There was a strange sadness upon

her face, a tragic sanctity, as on the face of a woman who renounces the

world, and more. For a long while she was silent, as though suffering

some lustre light out of heaven to stream into her heart. Presently she

answered Fulviac.

"God help me to be strong," she said, "God help me to bear the burden He

has put upon my soul."

"Amen, little woman."

"And now?"

"Prosper is preaching to all our men upon the cliff. He is telling them

your story. I take you now to set you before them all, that they may

look upon a living Saint. I leave the rest to your soul. God will tell

you how to bear yourself in the cause of the people. Come, let us pray

a moment."

They knelt down side by side before the crucifix, like effigies on a

tomb. Fulviac's face was in shadow; Yeoland's turned heavenward to the

Cross. It was her renunciation. Then they arose; Fulviac took up the

scarlet banner, and they passed out together from the room.

Traversing parlour and guard-room, finding them empty and silent as a

church, they came by the winding stairway in the rock to the hollow

opening upon the platform above. Two sentinels stood by the rough door.

Above and around, great stones had been piled up so as to form a species

of natural battlement. Fulviac, bearing the banner, climbed the rocks,

and signed to Yeoland to follow. They were still within a kind of rude

tower, walled in by heaped blocks of stone on every side. They were

alone save for the two sentinels. Above, they saw Prosper the Preacher

standing on a great square mass of rock, his tall figure outlined

against the sky.

They could see that the man was borne along by the strong spirit of the

preacher. His arms tossed to the sky as he bent forward and preached to

those invisible to Fulviac and the girl. His oratory was of a fervid,

strenuous type, like fire leaping in a wind, fierce, mobile, passionate.

They could see him stride to and fro on his platform, gesticulate, point

to heaven, smite his bosom, strike attitudes of ecstasy. His voice rang

out the while, full of subtle modulations, the pathetic abandonments,

the supreme outbursts of the orator. Much that he said fell deep into

the girl's heart. The man had that strange power, that magnetic

influence that exists in the individual, defying analysis, yet real as

the stirring witchery of great music, or as the voice of the sea.

Anon they saw him fall upon his knees, and lift his hands to the

heavens. He had cast a quick glance backward over his shoulder.

Prosper had soared to his zenith; he had his men listening as for the

climax of some great epic. Fulviac thrust Yeoland forward up the slope.

She understood the dramatic pause in an instant. Prosper's words had

been like the orisons of birds preluding the dawn. She climbed the

rocks, and stepped out at the kneeling monk's side.

The scene below dazed her for the moment. Many hundred faces were

turned to her from the slopes at her feet. Innumerable eyes seemed

fixed upon her with a mesmeric stare. She saw the whole cliff below her

packed with men, every rock crowned with humanity, even the pine trees

had their living burden. She saw swords waving like innumerable streaks

of light; she had a confused vision of fanaticism, exultation, power.

Deep seemed calling unto deep; a noise like the noise of breakers was in

her ears.

Then the whole grew clear on the instant. The sky seemed strangely

luminous; every outline in the landscape took marvellous and intelligent

meaning. Strange Promethean fire flashed down into her brain. She felt

her heart leaping, her blood bounding through her body, yet her mind

shone clear as a crystal grael.

Below her, she had humanity, plastic, inflammable, tinder to her touch.

An infinite realisation of power seemed to leap in her as at the beck of

some spirit wand. She felt all the dim heroism of dreams glowing in her

like wine given of the gods.

Holy fire burnt on her forehead and her tongue was loosed. She stood

out on the great rock, her armour flashing in the sun, her face bright

as the moon in her strength. Her voice, clear and silvery, carried far

over cliff and wood, for the day was temperate and without a wind.

"Look upon me well. I tell you the truth. I am she to whom the Madonna

appeared from heaven."

Great silence answered her, the silence of awe, not of disbelief or

disapprobation. Her voice rang solitary as the voice of a wood-fay in

the wilderness. The huddled men below were silent as children whose

solemn eyes watch a priest before the altar. She spoke on.

"I am she whose tale you have heard. God has given me to the cause of

the poor. To your babes and to your womenfolk I lift my hands; from the

Mother of Jesus I hold my command. Men of the land, will you believe

and follow my banner?"

A thousand hands leapt to the sun, yet hardly a voice broke the silence,

the calm as of supreme revelation. All the simple mediaeval faith shone

in the rough faces; all the quaint reverence, the unflinching fidelity,

of the unlettered of the age shone in their hearts. They were warm

earth to the seed of faith.

"Men of the land, I hear great noise of violence and wrong, of hunger

and despair. Your lords crush you; your priests go in jewels and fine

linen, and preach not the Cross. Your babes are slaves even before they

see the light. Your children, like brute beasts, are bound to the soil.

Men of the land, give me your strength, give me your strength for the

cause of God."

She drew her sword from its sheath, pressed the blade to her lips, held

it up to heaven. Her voice rang over rock and tree.

"Justice and liberty!"

Her shrill hail seemed to lift the silence from a thousand throats. The

human sea below gave up its soul to her with thundering surges and vast

sound of faith. As roar followed roar, she stood a bright, silvery

pinnacle above the black fanaticism beneath, transcendent Hope holding

her sword to the eternal sun.

Behind her, Fulviac unwrapped the great scarlet banner she had wrought.

Its cross of gold gleamed out as he lifted the staff with both hands.

Prosper, erect and exultant, stood pointing to its device. Then, in

sight of all men, he bowed down before the girl and kissed her feet, as

though she had been some rare messenger out of heaven.

XXI

The day had done gloriously till noon, but the sky's mood changed as

evening advanced. Clouds were huddled up in grey masses by a gathering

and gusty wind, and the June calm took flight like a girl in a new gown

when rain threatens.

By nightfall, a storm held orgy over the cliff. Billow upon billow of

wind came roaring over the myriad trees. The pines were sweeping a murky

sky with their black brooms, creaking and moaning in chorus. Rain

rattled heavily, and over the cliff the storm thundered and cried with

the long wail of the wind over rock and tree.

In Yeoland's chamber the lamp flared and smoked, and the postern

clattered. Rain splashed upon the shivering casement; the carpet

breathed restlessly with the draught under the door. It was late, yet

the girl was still at her devotions. Her thoughts were dishevelled and

full of discords, while between her fingers the beads of her rosary

moved listlessly, and her prayers were broken by the anathemas of the

storm.

The dual distractions of life had come in her to grappling point again.

She could boast no omnipotence in her own heart, and could but give

countenance to one of the two factions that clamoured for her favour.

As her mood changed like the mood of a fickle despot none too sure of

his throne, so tumult and despair were let loose time after time into

the echoing courts and alleys of her soul. She had neither the courage

nor the force of will for the moment to compel herself either to satisfy

her womanhood or sacrifice her instincts to a religious conviction. Man

and God held each a half of her being. The man's face outstared God's

face; God's law overshadowed the man's.

She had been carried into the palpitating azure of religious exaltation.

The world had rolled at her feet. She had bathed her forehead in the

infinite forethought of eternity; she had heard the stupendous sounding

of the spheres. Then some mischievous sprite had plucked the wings from

her shoulders, and she had fallen far into an abyss. After spiritual

exaltation comes physical depression. Neither is a normal state; neither

strictly sane to the intellect. Peter-like, she had trod the waves;

faith had played her false; the waters had gone over her soul.

As she knelt brooding before her crucifix, under the wavering lamp, she

was smitten into listening immobility, her rosary idle in her hand. A

cry had come to her amid the multitudinous voices of the storm, a cry

like a hail from a ship over a tumbling sea at night.

She waited and wondered. Again the cry rose above the babel of the

wind. Was it from Fulviac's room; or a sentinel's shout from the cliff,

seized upon and carried by the wind with distorting vehemence? Midnight

covered the world, and the girl was in an impressionable mood. She took

the lamp from its bracket and, opening the door, peered down the gallery

that led to Fulviac's room.

A sudden sinister sound made her start back into the room, the lamp

flashing tremulous beams upon the walls, and striking confusion into the

shadows. A hand was beating heavily upon the postern.

She set the lamp in its bracket, crept to the door, put her ear to the

lock and listened. The knocking had ceased, and in a momentary lulling

of the wind she even fancied she could hear the sound of deep breathing.

Her heart was hurrying, but suspense emboldened her.

"Who's there?"

A sudden gust made such a bluster that her voice died almost unheard in

the night. There was a vague clangour without, as of arms, and the

knocking re-echoed sullenly through the room. A lull came again.

"Who knocks?"

This time an answer came back to her.

"I--Flavian."

She caught her breath and shivered.

"What do you want at midnight, and in such a storm?"

"Let me in. Open to me."

"No--no."

"Open to me."

"Are you still mad?"

Silence held a moment. Then the voice rose again, with the hoarse moan

of the wind for an underchant.

"Liberty, liberty, I am free, I am free."

She shrank aside against the wall.

"The night gave me my chance; I have men in the wood. Let me in."

"Ah, messire."

"I plead for love and my own soul. I come to give you life, sword, all.

I cannot leave you; I am in outer darkness; you are in heaven. Let me

in."

She stood swaying like a reed in a breeze. Her brain glowed like some

rich scheme of colour, some sun-ravished garden. The massed moan of a

hundred viols seemed to sweep over her soul. God, for the courage to be

weak!

"Yeoland! Yeoland! have you no word for me?"

Her hand trembled to the door; her fingers closed upon the key. She

hesitated and her dangling rosary caught her glance; sudden revulsions

of purpose flooded back; she stumbled away from the door like one about

to faint.

"I cannot, I cannot," she said.

"I will break down the door."

The threat inspired her.

"No, no, not thus can you win me."

"I will break in."

"Attempt it, and I will call the guard. You will lose hope of me for

ever. I swear it."

Her voice rang true and strong as a sword. With her judgment, silence

fell again, and ages seemed to crawl over the world. When the man spoke

again, his voice was less masterful, more pathetic.

"Have you no hope for me?" it said.

"I have given you life."

"What is life without love?"

She sighed very bitterly.

"Messire, you do not understand," she said.

"No, you are a riddle to me."

"A riddle that you may read anon; time will show you the truth. I tell

you I am given to God. Only in one way can you win me."

"Are you solemn over this?"

"Solemn as death."

"Tell me that only way."

"Only by breaking the bonds about my soul, by liberating me from myself,

by battle and through perils that you cannot tell."

"War and the sword!"

"Yet not to-night. You would need ten thousand men to take me from this

cliff. I advise you for your good. Only by great power and the sword

can you win your desire."

"By God, then, let it be war."

An utter sense of loneliness flooded over her. She sobbed in her

throat, leant against the door, listened, waited. The wind roared

without, the rain beat upon the quaking casement, and she heard the

multitudinous moaning of the pines. No voice companioned her, and the

night was void.

A sudden access of passion prompted her. She twisted at the key, tore

the bolts aside, flung the door open. The stairway was empty. Rain

whirled in her face, as she stood out in the wind, and called the man

many times by name. It was vain and to no purpose.

Presently she re-entered the room, very slowly, and barred the door.

Her rosary rolled under her feet. She picked it up suddenly and dashed

it away into a corner. The face on the crucifix seemed to leer at her

from the wall.