"Courtesy fails me, sir," she said, letting her shoulders fall into a

graceful stoop, and turning her large eyes to Pelleas's face; "courtesy

fails me when I would most praise you for your knightly deed in yonder

meadows. I am so frightened that I cannot speak as I would. My heart is

quite tired with its fear and flutter. Think you--you can save us from

these wolves?"

Pelleas had neither the desire nor the leisure to stand juggling

courtesies with the woman.

"Madame," he said, "we shall fight. Leave the rest to Providence. I can

give you no better comfort."

"No," she said, "no"--as in a daze.

Pelleas, reading her misery, repented somewhat of his abrupt

truthfulness.

"Come," he said, with a kind strength and a hand on her shoulder; "go

to the house and rest there with Sister Igraine. I see you are too much

shaken. Go in and pray if you can, while we hold the island."

The girl looked at him unreservedly for a moment. Then she gave a

little laugh that was half a sob, and, bending to him, kissed his hand

before he could prevent her. Giving him yet another glance from her

tumbled hair, she stepped aside to Igraine, and they turned together

towards the manor, and the trees and gardens that ringed it. The

girl had set her hand in Igraine's with a little gesture that was

intended to be indicative of confidence in the supposed nun's greater

intelligence.

"Let us go and sit under that yew tree," she suggested. "I cannot

stifle within walls now. You are named Igraine. I am called

Morgan--Morgan la Blanche,--and I am a lord's daughter. I almost envy

you your frock now, for death cannot frighten you as it frightens me.

Of course you are very good, and the Saints guard and watch over you.

As for me, I have always been very thoughtless."

"Not more than I," said Igraine, with a smile. "I have often hummed

romances when I should have praised Paul or Peter."

"But doesn't the fear of death blight you like a frost?"

"I never think of death."

"It seems so near us now that I can hardly breathe. Do you think we are

tortured in the other world, if there be one?"

"How should I know, simple one?"

"I wish the mere were a league broad. I should feel further from the

pit."

"Is your conscience so unkind?"

"Conscience, sister? It is self-love, not conscience. I only want to

live. Look!--the heathen are coming down to the mere. How their axes

shine. Holy Mother!--I wish I could pray."

Igraine, catching the girl's pinched face, with lips drawn and

twitching, pitied her from her very heart.

"Come then, I will pray with you," she said.

"No, no, my prayers would blacken heaven. I cannot, I cannot."

The wild company had swept down between the great trees in disorderly

array. Their weapons shone in the sunlight, their round bucklers

blickered. They were soon at the place where Pelleas had slain his men

in fair and open field. Dismounting, they gathered about their dead

fellows, and sent up, after their custom, a vicious, dismal ululation,

a sound like the howling of wolves, drear enough to make the flesh

tingle under the stoutest steel. Lining the bank among the willows,

they shook buckler and axe, gesticulating, threatening, their long hair

blowing wild, their skin-clad bodies giving them a wolfin look not

pleasant to behold. Round the margin they paddled--searching--casting

about for a boat. They seemed like beasts behind the gates of some

Roman amphitheatre--caged from the slaughter. The girl Morgan looked

at them, screamed, and hid her face in her tunic. Igraine found the

girl's quaking hand, and held it fast in hers.

"Courage, courage," she said; "there is no boat, and, even if they

swim, Sir Pelleas is a great knight."

"What can he do against fifty?" whined the girl, with her face still

covered.

"Fifty? There are but a score. I have numbered them myself."

"I would give all the jewels in the world to be in Winchester."

"Ah! girl, I have no jewels to give; but this, I promise you, is better

than a convent."

The barbarians had gathered in a group beneath a great willow. Plainly

they were in debate as to what should be done. Some, by their gestures,

their tossing weapons, and their bombast, were for swimming the mere.

Their councils were palpably divided. Possibly the sager folk among

them did not think the venture worth the loss to them it might entail,

seeing that one of those cooped upon the island had already given proof

of no mean prowess. They could see the three armed men waiting grimly

by the water's edge, ready to strike down the swimmer who should crawl

half-naked from the water weeds and mire. Gradually, but surely, the

elder tongues held the argument, and the balance went down solemnly for

those upon the island.

Pelleas and the two men, watching keenly for any movement, saw the

circle of figures break and melt towards the horses. They saw them

pick up the bodies of their two dead fellows, and lay them across the

saddle. In a minute the whole troop turned, and held away southwards

at a trot, flinging back a last wild cry over the water. The meadows

rolled away behind them; the gradual trees hid them from moment to

moment. Pelleas and the two servants stood and watched till the black

line had gone southwards into the thickening woods.

Under the yew tree Morgan la Blanche had uncased her white face, and

was smiling feebly.

"I am glad I did not pray," she said; "it would have been so weak.

Look! I have torn my tunic, and my belt's awry. Bind my hair for me,

sister, quickly,--before Sir Pelleas comes."

VI

With the heathen lost in the distant woods, Pelleas and the women

essayed the house, leaving the two servants to sentinel the island.

The great gates of the porch were ajar. Pushing in, they crossed

into the atrium, and found it sleepy as solitude. The water in the

impluvium gleamed with the gold flanks of the fish that moved through

its shadows. Lilies were there, white and wonderful, swooning to their

own images in the pool. The tiled floor was rich with colour. Venturing

further, they found the triclinium untouched, rich couches and flaming

curtains everywhere, gilded chairs, and deep-lustred mirrors, urns, and

flowers. In the chapel candles were guttered on the altar; dim lights

came down upon a wealth of solemn beauty--saints, censers, crosses,

frescoed walls all green and azure, gold and scarlet. The viridarium,

set betwixt chapel and tablinum, held them dazed with a glowing

paradise of flowers. Here were dreamy palms, orange trees like mounts

of gold, roses that slept in a deep delight of green. Over all was

silence, untainted even by the silken purr of a bird's wing.

Gynœcium and bower were void of them in turn. Everywhere they found

the relics of a swift desertion. The manor folk had gone, as if to

the ferry of death, taking no worldly store or sumptuous baggage with

them. Not a living thing did they discover, save the fish darting in

the water. The cubicula were empty, their couches tumbled; the culina

fireless, and its hearth cold.

Pelleas and the women marvelled much at the beauty of the place; its

solitude seemed but a ghostly charm to them. As for the girl Morgan,

she had taken Pelleas into her immediate and especial favour, holding

at his side everywhere, a-bubble with delight. The luxury of the place

pleased her at every glance; her vanity ran riot like a bee among

flowers. She eyed herself furtively in mirrors, and put a rose daintily

in her hair while Pelleas was not looking. She had already rifled a

cabinet, strung a chain of amethysts about her neck, and poked her

fingers into numberless rings. Then she would try the couches, queen

it for a moment in some stately chair, or smother her face sensuously

in the flowers growing from the urns. All these pretty vapourings were

carried through with a most mischievous grace. Igraine, who had seen

the girl white and whimpering an hour before and in deadly horror of

the pit, wondered at her, and hated her liberally in her heart.

Nor was Pelleas glad of the change her presence had wrought; for her

childish subtleties had no hold on him, and even her thieving seemed

insipid. With solemn and shadowy thoughts in his heart, her frivolous

worldliness came like some tinkling discord. Igraine seemed to have

dimmed her eyes from him beneath the shadow of her hood. Her face was

set like the face of a statue, and there was no play of thought upon

it. She walked proudly behind the pair--not with them--like one elbowed

out of companionship by a vapouring rival.

In the women's bower Morgan found a lute, and pounced upon it.

"One's whole desire seems here," she chattered. "This bower suits my

fancy like a dream, and I could lodge here a month for love of it.

What think you, Knight Pelleas? I never set foot in a fairer manor. I

warrant you there are meat and wine in the cellars. We will feast and

have music anon."

Pelleas's face looked more suited to a burial. Igraine pitied him, for

his eyes looked tired and sad. Morgan ran on like a jay. In the chapel

she found Igraine a share.

"Here is your portion, holy Sister," she said; "mine the bower, yours

the altar. So you see we are all well suited. Come, though, is it not

very horrible having to look solemn all day, and to wear a grey gown?

I should fade in a week inside such a hood; besides, it makes you look

such a colour."

Igraine could certainly boast a colour at that moment that might have

warned the woman of her rising fume. Pelleas broke in and took up the

argument.

"Men do not consider dress," he said; "everything is fair to the

comely. I look into a woman's face and into her eyes, and take the

measure of her heart. Such is my catechism."

"But you like to see rich silks and a smile, and to hear a laugh at

times. What is a girl if she is not gay? No discourtesy to you, sister;

but you seem so far set from Sir Pelleas and myself."

Igraine, lacking patience, flared up like a torch. "Ha! mark you," she

said, "my habit makes me no coward, nor do I thieve. No discourtesy to

you, my dear lady."

Morgan set up a thrill of laughter.

"How true a woman is a nun," quoth she; "but you are too severe, too

careful. Thieving, too; why, I may as well have a trinket or so before

the place is rifled, even if I take a single ring. And what is more, I

have been turned from my own house with hardly a bracelet or a bodkin.

Come, Sir Pelleas, let us be going; the Sister would be at her prayers.

I see we but hinder her."

Pelleas had lost both pity and patience in the last minute.

Partisanship is inevitable even in the most trivial differences, and

Pelleas's frown was strongly for Morgan la Blanche.

"Perhaps it would be well, madame," said he, "if we all went on our

knees for the day's deliverance. I cannot see that there is any shame

in gratitude."

"Gratitude!" chirped the girl. "Gratitude to whom?"

"To the Lord Saviour, madame, and the Mother Virgin."

She half laughed in his face, but his eyes sobered her. For a moment

she fronted him with an incredulous smirk, then her glance wavered,

and lowered to his breast. It held there with a tense stare, while

her whole face hardened. Pelleas saw her pupils darken, her cheeks

flush and pale in a moment. He thought nothing of it, or ascribed her

distraught and strange look to some sudden shame or shock of penitence.

In a trice the smile was back again, and she seemed pert and pleased as

ever.

"I see you are too devout for me," she said with a glib laugh, "and

that I am too wicked a thing for the moment. I will leave you to Sister

Igraine till you both have prayed your fill." Here she laughed again, a

laugh that made Igraine's cheeks burn. "Remember me to St. Anthony if

you may. If I recollect rightly he was a nice old gentleman, who cured

'the fire' for a miracle, and nearly fell in love with a devil. Till

you have done, I will go and gather flowers."

Pelleas and Igraine looked at one another.

"A devout child," said the man.

"And not bred in a nunnery."

"The world's convent, I should say."

For the moment Igraine was almost for telling him of her own hypocrisy,

but the thought found her more troubled on that score than she could

have guessed. She had acted a lie to the man, and feared his true eyes

despite her courage. "Another day I will tell him," she thought; "it

is not so great a sin after all." So they turned and knelt at their

devotions.

Morgan la Blanche went away like the wind. She ran through atrium and

porch with hate free in her eyes, and her child's face twisted into

a scowl of temper. In the garden she idled up and down awhile in a

restless fume, like one whose thoughts bubble bodingly. Sometimes she

would smite a lily peevishly with her open hand, or pluck a flower and

trample it under her feet as though it had wronged her. Then she would

take something from her bosom and stare at it while her lips worked,

or while she bit her fingers as though galled by some inward barb.

Presently she found her way by a laurel walk to the orchard, and thence

by a wicket-gate to the island's rim, where one of her men kept watch

on the further meadows.

She stood under an apple tree, called to him, and beckoned. He came

to her--a short, burly fellow with the look of a bull, and brute writ

large on his visage. Morgan drew him under the swooping dome of the

tree, plucked something that shone from her bosom, and dangled it

before his eyes.

"The cross," she said, almost in a whisper. "Galerius, the cross."

The man stared at her stupidly. Morgan lifted a finger, ran this way

and that peering into the green glooms and listening. Then she came

back to the man, soft-footed, glib as a cat, with the cross of gold

gripped in her fingers. She smiled at him, a smile that was almost a

leer.

"Galerius," she said, "the knight in the house yonder wears a chain

with one cross missing, and the fellow cross matches this. Moreover,

his poniard sheath is empty. I marked all this as I stood by him a

moment ago. This is the man who slew my lord."

The servant's heavy face showed that he understood her well enough now.

"To-night," she said, almost skipping under the trees with the

intensity of her malice, "it shall be with his own poniard. I have it

here. Galerius, you have always been a good fellow."

The man grinned.

"Keep silence and leave all to me. I shall need your hand and no more."

"Nor shall he," said Galerius curtly.

Morgan grew suddenly bleak and quiet, with the thought of murder

harboured in her heart.

"Look for yourself, Galerius," she said; "see that my eyes have not

deceived me. The man must have come upon Lord Madan when he was alone,

after our hirelings had deserted the house. He slew him in the winter

room--this whelp sent by Aurelius the king. You and I, Galerius,

found the cross in my lord's dead hand, and the poniard in his bosom.

I warrant you we will level this deed before we hold again for

Winchester."

"Trust my hand, Madame Morgan," quoth the man; "if you can have the

fellow sleeping, so much the better, one need not strike in a hurry."

"Leave it to me," she said; "I will give you your knife and your chance

to-night."

With that she sent the fellow back to his watching, and threaded the

orchard to the manor garden. Pelleas and Igraine had long ended their

prayers in the chapel. Morgan found them in the atrium, watching the

fish in the water and their own reflections in the pool. The girl

had quite smothered the bleak look that had held her features in the

orchard. She was the same ingenuous, self-pleased little woman whose

blue eyes seemed as clear and honest as a sleeping sea in summer.

Before, she had flown in Pelleas's face for vanity's sake; now she

seemed no less his woman--ready with smiles and childish flattery, and

all the pleasantness she could gather. She was at his side again--quick

with her eyes and tongue. Probably she guessed that the man despised

her, but then that was of no moment now, seeing that it made the secret

in her heart more bitter.

At noon they dined in the triclinium, with man Galerius to serve. He

had ransacked kitchen and pantry, and from the ample store discovered,

had spread a sufficient meal. His eyes were ever on Pelleas as he

waited. There was no doubt about cross or poniard sheath; and Galerius

found pleasure in scanning the knight's armour and looking for the

place where he might strike.

The afternoon proved sultry, and Pelleas took his turn in keeping watch

by the bank. Cool and placid lay the water in the sun, while vapoury

heat hung over the meadows and the distant woods. There was still

fear lest the heathen might return, thinking to catch the islanders

napping. The very abruptness of their retreat had been in itself

suspicious; and Pelleas was all for caution. Igraine's face seemed to

make him more careful of peril. He thought much of her as he paced the

green bank for three hours or more, before leaving the duty to Galerius

and his fellow.

Returning to the manor he found Igraine cushioned on the tiled floor

beside the impluvium, fingering the lute that Morgan la Blanche had

found. The latter lady was still in the tablinum, so Igraine said,

pilfering and admiring at her leisure, with fruit and a cup of spiced

wine ready at her hand. Pelleas took post on the opposite side of the

pool to Igraine, unarmed himself at his leisure, and began to clean his

harness. No task could have pleased Igraine better. She put the lute

away, took his helmet on her lap, and burnished it with the corner of

her gown. Pelleas had sword, breast-plate, greaves and shoulder pieces

beside him. Their eyes often met over the pool as they sat with the

scent of lilies in the air, and talked little--but thought the more.

Igraine felt queerly happy. There seemed a warm fire in her bosom, a

stealthy, happy heat that crept through every atom of her frame like

the sap into the fibres of some rich rose. Her heart seemed to unfold

itself like a flower in the sun. She looked often at Pelleas, and her

eyes were very soft and bright.

"A fair place, this," she said presently, as the man furbished his

sword.

"Fair indeed," said he; "a rich manor."

"It is strange to me after Avangel."

"Perhaps more beautiful."

"Ah," she said, with a sudden kindling; "I think my whole soul was made

for beauty, my whole desire born for fair and lovely things. You will

smile at me for a dreamer, but often my thoughts seem to fly through

forests--marvellous green glooms all drowned in moonlight. I love to

hear the wind, to watch the great oaks battling, to see the sea one

laugh of gold. Every sunset harrows me into a moan of woe. I can sing

to the stars at night--songs such as the woods weave from the voice of

a gentle wind, dew-ladened, green and lovely. Sometimes I feel faint

for sheer love of this fair earth."

Pelleas's eyes were on her with a strange deep look. His dark face was

aglow with a new wonder, as though his soul had flashed to hers. The

great sword lay naked and idle in his hands.

"Often have I felt thus," he said, "but my lips could never say it.

Thoughts are given to some without words."

"But the joy is there," she answered, with a quiet smile.

"Joy in beauty?"

"Yes."

"Ah, girl, a beautiful face, or a blaze of gold and scarlet over the

western hills, are like strange wine to my heart."

"Yes, yes, it is grand to live," said Igraine.

Pelleas's head went down over his sword as though in thought.

"It would seem," he said presently, "that beauty is a closed book, save

to the few. It is good to find a heart that understands."

"Ah, that know I well," she chimed; "in Avangel they had souls like

clay; they saw nothing, understood nothing. I think I would rather die

than be soul blind."

"So many folk," said the man, "seem to live as though they were ever

scanning the bottom of a pot. They never get beyond reflections on

appetite."

As they talked, Morgan la Blanche came in from behind the looped

curtains, with silks, samites, siclatons, and sarcanets in her arms.

She had found some rich chest in the bower accomplice to her fingers,

and had revelled gloriously. She sat herself down near Pelleas, and

began to laugh and chatter like a pleased child. The dainty stuffs

were tossed this way and that, gathered into scarves or frills, spread

over her lap and eyed critically as to colour, before being bound in

a bale for her journey. Vain and vapid as her behaviour seemed, there

was more in this little woman's heart than either Pelleas or Igraine

could have guessed. Her whole mood was false. Foolish as she seemed on

the surface, she was more keen, more subtle by far than Igraine, whose

whole soul spelt fire and courage.

As the day drew towards evening, Morgan became more stiff and silent.

Her eyes were bright as the jewels round her neck; they would flash

and waver, or fall at times into long, sidelong stares. More than

once Igraine caught the girl's face in hard thought, the pert lips

straight and cruel, the eyes hungry and very shallow. It reminded

her of Morgan's look in the morning, when she was in such stark fear

of the heathen and of death. Yet while she watched her, smiles and

glib vivacity would sweep back again as though there had been but a

transient cloud of thought over the girl's face.

With the shadows lengthening, they turned, all three of them, into

the garden, and found ease on a grass bank beneath the black boughs

of a great cedar. The arch of the dark foliage cut the sky into a

semicircle of azure. All about them the grass seemed dusted with dim

flowers--blue, white, and violet. A rich company of tiger lilies bowed

to the west. Dense banks of laurels and cypresses stood like screens of

blackest marble, for the sun was sinking. As they lay under the tree,

they could look down upon the water, sheeny and glorious in the evening

peace. Further still, the willows slept like a mist of green, with the

fields Elysian and full of sweet stupors, the woods beyond standing

solemn and still at the beck of night.

Morgan, who had brought the lute with her, began to touch the strings,

and to sing softly in a thin, elfin voice--

My heart is open at the hour of night

When lilies swoon

And roses kiss in bed.

When all the dreams of sad-lipped passion rise

From sleep's blue bowers

To die in lover's eyes.

Come flame,

Come fire,

A woman's bosom

Is but life's desire.

So, all my treasures are but held for love

In scarlet silks

And tapestries of snow.

I long, white-bosomed like the stars that sigh

A bed in heaven

For love's ecstasy.

Come flame,

Come fire,

A woman's bosom

Is all man's desire.

The birds were nestling and gossiping in the laurel bushes, taking

lodging for the night. From the topmost pinnacle of the cedar, a

thrush, a feathered muezzin, had called the world to prayer. From the

mere came the cries of water-fowl; the eerie wail of the lapwing rose

in the meadows. Presently, all was still and breathless; a vast hush

seemed to hold the world. The west was fast dying.

Under the cedar the light lurked dim and magic. Morgan's fingers were

still hovering on the strings, and she was singing to herself in a

whisper, as though she had care for nothing, save for that which was

in her heart. Pelleas and Igraine were quite near each other in the

shadow. They had looked into each other's eyes--one long, deep look.

Each had turned away troubled, yet with a sudden glory of quick anguish

in their hearts. The night seemed very subtle to them, and the whole

world sweet.

VII

Igraine's thoughts were to music when she went to bed that night.

Pelleas's eyes stayed with her, darkly, sadly; his tragic face seemed

to look out of the night, like the face of one dead. And he more than

liked her. She felt sure of that, even if she did not dream of kinder

things sprung from long looks and quiet sighings. She sat on her bed,

and smiled the whole strange day over to herself again. She had the

man before her in all his looks and poses; how he sat his horse, the

habit he had of looking deeply into nothingness, his strength and quiet

knightliness, and above all his devout soul. He seemed to please her

at every point in a way that set her thrilling within herself with a

delicious wonder. Last, she thought of the weird twilight under the

grand old tree--rare climax to a day of deeds and memories. She felt

her heart leap as she remembered the great wistful look that had shone

out on her from Pelleas's eyes.

The manor house seemed still as the night itself. Morgan la Blanche had

taken herself to a couch in the triclinium, choosing it rather than one

of the cubicles leading from the atrium. Galerius was on guard, pacing

the mere's bank, while his comrade slept in the kitchen. Pelleas,

armed, with sword and shield beside him, had quartered himself on

cushions in the great porch, with the doors open.

It was about ten o'clock. Igraine, full of sweet broodings, crept

into bed, and settled herself for sleep. The night was wonderfully

peaceful. The window of the room was overgrown with a tangle of roses,

the flowers seeming to mellow the air as it came softly in, and there

was a faint shimmer into the shadows that hinted at moonlight. Igraine

lay long awake, with her eyes on the few stars that peeped through

between the jambs. There was too much in her heart to let sleep in for

the while, and her thoughts were a'dance within her brain like wild,

fleet-footed things. As she lay in a happy fever of thought, her face

grew hot upon the pillow, and her tumbled hair was like a lustrous lava

flow over the bed. In course, despite her tossing, she fell into a

shallow, fitful sleep that verged between wakefulness and dreams.

It was well past midnight when she started, wide awake, with the

half-dreamt memory of some eerie sound in her ears. She sat up in bed,

and listened, shivering. There were footfalls, swift and light, on the

pavement of the atrium. From somewhere came a gruff voice, speaking

tersely and in bated tones. Next, there was something that sounded like

a groan, and then silence.

Igraine crept out of bed, hurried on her habit, opened the door gently,

and looked out. Moonlight streamed in through the square aperture in

the roof of the hall, but all else lay in darkness. The porch gates

were ajar, with a band of light slanting through upon the tiles. Eager,

tremulous, she fancied as she stood that she heard the beat of oars.

Then the low, groaning cough that she had heard before thrilled her

into action like a trumpet cry.

She was across the court in a second, and into the darkened porch. The

doors swung back to her hands, and the night streamed in. Clear before

her, lit with a silver emphasis, lay the water, and on it she saw the

dark outline of the barge, moving with foaming oars towards the further

bank. For the moment her heart seemed to halt within her.

"Pelleas!" she cried. "Pelleas!"

A stifled sound answered her from a dark corner of the porch. With a

sudden frost in her bosom she saw a black rill trickling over the tiles

in the moonlight, even touching her feet. Great fear came upon her, but

left her power to think. In the triclinium she had seen a lamp, with

tinder, steel, and flint in a tray beside it, and in her fear she ran

thither, tore her fingers in her haste with stone and steel, but had

the lamp lit with such speed as she had never learnt at Avangel. Then

she went back trembling into the porch.

The knight Pelleas lay in the corner, half propped against the wall.

His head was bowed down upon his chest, and he had both hands clasped

upon the neck-band of his tunic. Blood was trickling from his mouth,

and he seemed to be hardly breathing, while under the left arm-pit

shone the silver hilt of the knife that had been thrust there by

Galerius's hand. To the thought of the girl it seemed as if the man

were in his death agony.

The utter realism of the moment drove all fear from her. She set the

lamp on the tiles, and kneeling by Pelleas, pulled the knife slowly

from his side. A gush of blood followed. She strove to staunch it with

a corner of her gown. The man was quite unconscious, and never heeded

her, though he was still breathing jerkily and feebly, with a rattling

stridor in his throat. She lifted his head and rested it upon her

shoulder, while she knelt and pressed her hand over the wound, dreading

to see him die each moment.

For an hour she knelt, cold and almost bare-kneed, on the stone floor,

holding the man to her, watching his breathing with a tense fear,

pressing upon the wound as though ethereal life would ebb and mock

her fingers. Little by little she felt the warm flow cease, felt her

fingers stiffened at their task, while the minutes dragged like æons,

and the lamp flickered low in the night. At last she knew that the

issue was stayed, and that Pelleas bled no more. Gradually, fearfully,

lest life should fall away like a poised wand, she laid the man

down, and again watched with her hand over the stricken side. He was

breathing more noticeably now, with less of the look of death about

him. Encouraged thus, she dared to meditate leaving him to find wine,

and sheets to cover him there. When she essayed to move she found her

habit clotted to the wound where she had held it. It took her minutes

to cut the cloth through with the knife that had stabbed Pelleas, for

she was palsied lest the wound should break again and lose her her

love's labour.

Free at last, she fled into her room, tore the clothes in which she

had lain from the bed, and carried them trailing into the porch. Then,

lamp in hand, she spoiled the triclinium of rugs and cushions, and

found there the chalice of wine that Morgan had sipped from. Ladened,

she struggled back across the hall, fearing all the while to find the

man parted. No such foul fortune, however. He was breathing better and

better.

Then she set to to make a bed. She spread cushions and rugs; and then,

so slowly, so gently, that she seemed hardly to move, she had the man

laid upon the couch, with two cushions under his head. Next she covered

him with the clothes taken from her own bed. Thus much completed

without mishap, she washed his lips and face with water taken from the

pool, trickled some wine down his throat, and set the doors wide to

watch for dawn.

So pressed had she been by the man's peril, that even the right of

thought had been denied her. Now, seated by the lamp, she began to sift

matters as well as her meagre knowledge would suffer, keeping constant

watch on wounded Pelleas the while. She knew that Morgan and her men

were gone in the barge, but as to who gave Pelleas his wound, she could

come to no clear understanding in her heart. There must have been some

deep feud for such a stroke, though she could find no reason for the

deed. Still, she could believe anything of that chit Morgan la Blanche,

and there the riddle rested for a season.

Before long she saw the summer dawn stealing silently and mysteriously

into the east. The face of the sky grew grey with waking light, and the

hold of the moon and night relaxed on wood and meadow. Then the birds

began in the garden, till she thought their shrill piping must wake

Pelleas from his swoon, so blithe and lusty were they. The east was

forging day fast in its furnace of gold. The glare touched the clouds

and rolled them into wreaths of amber fire.

A sigh from the couch brought her to her feet like magic. She went and

knelt by the bed in quite a tumult of expectation. Pelleas's hands

were groping feebly over the coverlet like weak, blind things. Igraine

caught them in hers, thrilled as they closed upon her fingers, and,

bending low, she waited with her lips almost on the man's, her hair on

his forehead, her eyes fixed on his closed lids. All her soul seemed

to droop above him like a lily over a grave. Presently he sighed again,

stirred and opened his eyes full on Igraine's, as she knelt and mingled

her breath with his.

"Pelleas," she whispered. "Pelleas."

He looked at her for a moment with a dazed stare that dawned into a

smile that made her long to sing.

"It is Igraine," she said.

Pelleas caught a deep breath, and groaned as his stricken side twinged

to the quick.

Igraine put two fingers on his lips.

"Lie still," she said, "lie still if you love earth. You must not

speak, no, not one little word. I must have you quiet as a child,

Pelleas. You have been so near death."

She felt the man's hand answer hers. He did not speak or move, but lay

and looked at her as a little child in a cradle looks at its mother, or

as a dog eyes his master. Igraine put his hands gently down upon the

coverlet, and smiled at him.

"Lie so, Pelleas," she said; "be very quiet, for I am to leave you, for

a minute and no more. You must not move a finger, or I shall scold."

She beamed at him, started up and ran straight to the chapel, her heart

a-whimper with a joy that was not mute. She went full length on the

altar steps with her face turned to the cross above--the cross whose

golden arms were aglow with the sun through the eastern window. In her

mood, the white Christ's face seemed to smile on her with equal joy.

She learnt more in that moment than Avangel had taught her in a year.

Hardly five minutes had passed before she was with Pelleas again,

bearing fruit and olives, bread and oil. She made a sweet dish of bread

and berries, with some wine in it for his heart's sake, and then knelt

at his side to feed him. She would not let him lift a finger, but

served him herself with silver spoon and platter, smiling to give him

courage as he obeyed her like a babe. It seemed very pitiful to her

that so much strength and manliness should have been smitten so low

in one brief night. None the less, the man's feebleness brought her

more joy than ever his courage had done, and his peril had discovered

clear wells of ruth in her that might have been months hidden but for

the hand of Galerius. When Pelleas had finished the bread and fruit,

she gave him more wine, and then set to to bathe his hands and face

with scented water taken from the tablinum. Pelleas's eyes, with deep

shadows under them now, watched her all the while with a kind of

wondering calm. The sunlight flooded in, and lit her hair like red

gold, and made her neck to shine like alabaster. Meeting his look, she

reddened, and turned to hide her face for a moment, that he might not

see all that was writ there in letters of flame.

"Now you must sleep, Pelleas," she said, crossing his hands upon the

quilt.

He shook his head feebly.

"I am going to leave you," she persisted, "so you must not flout me,

Pelleas. I shall be here, ready, when you wake."

She smiled at him, and closed his lids gently with her finger tips.

"Sleep," she said, brushing her hand softly over his forehead, "for

sleep will give you strength again. You may need it."

She left him there, and taking bread and olives with her, she closed

the porch gates to shade him, and went herself into the garden. After a

meal under the old cedar, she went down to the water's edge and washed

her feet from the stains of Pelleas's blood, and bathed her hands and

face. She saw the barge amid the reeds and rushes on the further bank.

There was no sign of life in the meadows, and the woods were deep with

peace.

Then she remembered Pelleas's horse. Going to the stable behind the

manor, she found the beast stalled there, though Morgan's horses had

been taken by the men in the barge. Igraine took hay from the rack,

gave him a measure of oats in his manger, and watered him with water

from the mere. Then she stood and combed his mane with her fingers

as he fed. Some of the poppies she had plaited there were dead and

drooping in the black hair. She thought as she unbound the withered

things how nearly Pelleas's life had withered with theirs. She was very

happy in her heart, and she sang softly the low tender songs women love

when their thoughts are maying.

Igraine passed the whole morning in the garden, going every now and

again to the porch to open the doors gently, and peep in upon the

sleeper. She gathered a basket of fruit and a lapful of flowers. About

noon she went in, and bringing jars from the triclinium, she filled

them with water and garnished them with flowers. These jars she set in

array about Pelleas's bed, one of tiger lilies and one of white lilies;

a bowl of roses at his head, a jar of hollyhocks and one of thyme, and

fragrant herbs at the foot. Moreover, she strewed the coverlet with

pansies, and scattered rose leaves on his pillow. Then she went to the

chapel to pray awhile, before sitting down to watch beside his bed.

Pelleas woke about an hour after noon had turned. At his first

stirring, Igraine was hanging over him like a mother, with her hands

on his. Pelleas looked up at her, saw the flowers about his bed, and,

risking her menaces, spoke his first word.

"Igraine," he said.

She put her face down to his.

"I am much stronger," he said; "I can talk now."

"Perhaps a very little," she answered, with her eyes on his.

"Igraine!"

"Yes, Pelleas."

"You are very wonderful."

"Pelleas!" she said redly.

"I should have died without you, for I was witless, and coughing blood."

"I thought you would die," she said very softly, with her eyes

downcast. "I held you in my arms and, God helping me, staunched the

flow from your wound. But tell me, Pelleas, who was it stabbed you?"

The man smiled at her.

"There, I am as ignorant as you," he said. "I woke with a fiery twinge

in my side, and saw a man running out of the porch in the dark. I

struggled to rise. Blood came into my mouth, and betwixt coughing and

hard breathing I must have fainted. What of the others?"

Igraine knelt up from stooping over him, and thought.

"Morgan and her men," she said presently, "fled across the mere in the

barge just after you had been stabbed. I saw them go in the moonlight.

It was your cry that woke me in bed. I came and found you senseless in

the corner, and the woman and her rascals making off in the boat. One

of the men must have smitten you while you slept."

Pelleas kept silence for a while, as though he were thinking hard.

"Show me the knife," he said anon.

Igraine had washed away the stains, and laid it aside in a corner. She

held it up now before Pelleas's eyes as he lay in bed. He took it from

her with trembling hands, and handled it, his face darkening.

"This is my own poniard," he said, "the poniard I left in the heart of

the man in Andredswold. Look, girl, look! Search and see, mayhap you

may find a cross."

Igraine did his bidding, and searched the pavement, but found nothing.

Then she came back to the bed, and began to turn the cushions up here

and there, and to scan the tiled floor. Sure enough, under the foot of

the bed, she found a small gold cross lying, smeared lightly with dried

blood. She took it up and gave it to Pelleas. He caught and held it

with a terse cry.

VIII

Pelleas lay the afternoon through in a half dream of shifting thought.

But for the tangible things about him there might have been elfin

mischief in the air, for the last few days had passed with such flash

of new feeling and desire that the man's mind was still in a daze.

He lay in bed, with jars of lilies round him, and a woman tending him

with the grace of a Diana. It was all very strange, very pleasant,

despite the ague in his ribs and his inordinate weakness. He was not so

sure after all that he bore Morgan la Blanche any so fervent a piece of

malice; fortune seemed to beckon him towards generosity, seeing that

his condition was so truly picturesque. Uncouth feelings were swallowed

up for the time being by a benignant stupor of contentment.

But the balance of human happiness is often very nice and subtle.

Leaden reason tumbled into the scale of melancholy may even outscale

the bowl of dreams. Love and law often dangle on either beam of a man's

mind, or philosophy anchored to a rock may sky poor fancy into the

clouds. So it was with Pelleas that day, wisdom being often enough a

miserable nurse. When he thought of Igraine, reason as he would with

himself, his soul began to shimmer like moon-rippled water. When she

looked at him the very pillars of his manhood seemed to quake. When

she passed, light-footed, from garden to porch, she seemed to come

in like the sun, bringing streams of warmth into his wounded flesh.

Of necessity, he soon met other cogitations less pleasant, and no

less imperative. From legal quarters came that inevitable pedagogue

blear-eyed Verity, paunched up with dogma and breathing ethical

platitudes like garlic. "The woman's a nun," quoth Dom Verity, with

a sneer. "Keep your fancy in leash, my good Pelleas, and forswear

romance. Bar your thoughts from a child of the church or you will rue

it. No man may serve a nun. The world has said."

What with his wound and his fractious meditations, Pelleas soon

fell into a most dismal temper. Like most sick folk he had lost for

the time that level sense of proportion that is the sure outcome of

health. His thoughts began to gape at him, and to pull most melancholy

grimaces. Even the dead man squatting in the great chair in the manor

in Andredswold began to haunt him like an ogrish conscience. Hot and

racked, he could stand his own company at last no longer. Calling

Igraine to him, he began to unburden himself to her with regard to the

man he had done to death in the forest.

The girl listened, mild as moonlight, and ready to swear away her soul

to soothe him.

"I am troubled for the deed," he was saying, "though the man deserved

death, twenty deaths, and though I served justice to the echo. His

blood hangs on my hands, and makes me restless at heart."

"Tell me his sin, Pelleas."

"They were many, and too gross for ears such as thine."

"Then palpably he was too gross to live."

"No doubt, child."

"Then why trouble for his death, Pelleas; you would not shrink from

treading out an adder's brains?"

"Ah, but there is the man's soul. I feel for him after my own

down-bringing. What chance had he of penitence?"

"True," she said gravely, "but your mother, the Abbess Gratia, used to

tell us that bad men repented only in legends and in the Bible; never

in grim life. Besides, you prevented the man committing worse offences

in the future, and getting deeper into the pit. Why, Pelleas, hundreds

of good knights have lost life for a mere matter of love; why trouble

for the life of a wretch who perhaps never knew what truth meant. You

would not grieve for men slain in battle."

"In battle the blood is hot and the brain afire. This was a rank and

reasonable stroke."

"And therefore the more deserved. Why trouble about it, Pelleas? In

faith, since your plight makes me tyrant, I forbid such brooding. It is

but the evil fancy of a distraught mind, an incubus I must chase away.

See, your hands are hot, and your forehead too. Will you sleep again,

or shall I sing to you?"

"Presently," he said. "I have more to speak of yet."

Igraine knelt by him on her cushion, serene and tender.

"Say on, Pelleas," she said; "a woman loves a man's confidence. If I

can give you comfort I will gladly listen here till midnight. You are

not yourself, weak from loss of blood, and a gnat's sting is like a

lance thrust to you. Tell me your other troubles."

Pelleas groaned, hesitated, looked up into her eyes, and recanted

inwardly. He furbished up a minor woe to serve the occasion.

"It is my sword and shield," he said; "they were given me blessed and

consecrated by my mother. It is in my thought that I had smirched them

by this deed. What think you, girl?"

"I cannot think so," she said stoutly.

Then since his face was so wistful and troubled, she racked her fancy

for some plan she thought might soothe him. A sudden purpose came to

her like prophecy.

"Listen," she said. "I can do this for you. Give me your shield and

sword, and let me lay them on the high altar under the cross with

candles burning, and let me pray for them there. Will that comfort you,

Pelleas?"

"Yes," he said, with a sudden sad smile; "pray for me, go and pray for

me, Igraine."

It was the impulse of a moment. She bent down with a great thrill of

wonder, and kissed the man's lips. It was soon done, soon sped. She saw

Pelleas's blood stream to his face, saw something in his eyes that made

her heart canter. Then she darted away, took up the great sword and

the shield with its red face, and went to the chapel singing like a

seraph. Her prayers were a strange jumble of worship and recollection.

"Lord Jesu, cleanse his spirit," said her heart one moment; "truth,

how he coloured and looked at me," it sang with more human refrain the

next. "May he be a knight above knights," quoth devotion; "and may I be

ever fair in his eyes," chimed love. Altogether, it was a most quaint

prayer.

Now, a certain mundane matter had been troubling Igraine's thought that

day. The barge, seized and put to use by Morgan and her men, lay amid

the reeds on the nether shore, ready to give passage to any chance

wayfarer, welcome or otherwise, who should choose to cross the mere.

The boat, so fixed, floated as a constant peril to Pelleas and herself.

She felt that peace would flout them so long as the barge lay ready

to play ferry-boat to any casual intruder. Pelleas's wound might keep

them cooped many days in the place. She vowed to herself that the boat

should be regained, and blushed when the oath accused her.

At dusk, when the birds were piping, and there was a green hush over

the world, she went back to Pelleas, a beautiful shameface, accompliced

by the twilight.

"I have prayed," she said simply.

Pelleas touched her fingers.

"I feel happier," he said.

"That is well."

"Stay near me, Igraine. It grows dark fast."

"I shall be with you till you sleep," she said.

Igraine fed him with her own hands, talking little the while, but

feeling very enamoured of her lot. She was thinking of her new surprise

with some mischieful pleasure as she tended Pelleas. The man was

silent, yet very placid and facile to her willing. When she had bathed

his face and neck, and seen him well couched, she took the lute Morgan

had handled, and began to sing to him softly--wistfully, as though the

song was the song of a quiet wind through willows. It was a chant for

the dusk, for the quiet gazing of the first fires of heaven. Pelleas

heard it like the distant touching of strings over charmed water, and

with the breath of lilies over him he fell asleep.

Igraine held by him still as a mouse in the dark, till she knew by his

breathing that he was deep in slumber. Then she set the lute aside, put

the lamp by the porch door, so that it should be ready to hand, and

stole out into the garden.

The moon was just coming up above the distant trees. Igraine waited

under the black-vaulted cedar till the great ring rode bleak above the

fringe of the tops before she went down between laurels to the water's

edge. There was a deep cedarn scent on the warm air, and everything

seemed deathly still. Going to the landing stage, she stood there

awhile looking at the water, dark and mysterious, with pale webs of

light upon its agate surface. Then she began to bind her hair closely

on her head, smiling to herself, and staring down at her vague image in

the water.

Her hair in shackles, she turned to her task in earnest. Soon habit,

shift, and sandals were lying in a heap, and she was standing clean,

rare, gleamingly straight as a statue, with her arms folded upon her

breast. For a moment she stood, making the night to swoon, before

taking to the mere. Pearly white with an aureole of foam, she swam

flankwise with an overhand stroke, one arm thrusting out like a silver

sickle. Here and there, fretted by the willows, long moonbeams glinted

on her round whiteness, as the maddened foam bubbled, and the water

sighed and yearned amid the sedges. A fine glow had leapt through her

body like wine, and the mere seemed to sway and sing as she swam for

the main bank, where the willows stood blackly in a mist of phosphor

glory. Soon she reached the shallows at a pleasant place where stretch

of grassland tongued down into the mere. She climbed out, and stood

like a water nymph, her body agleam and asparkle with its dew, her skin

like rare silk, smooth as a star's glance. Down fell her hair like

smoke. She stretched her arms to the moon, and laughed, aglow with the

warmth gotten of her swim. Then she went to where the barge lay amid

the reeds, and boarding it poled out into the deeps.

Standing on the poop she used an oar as a paddle, and so brought the

cumbrous barge slowly under way. It stole out from the fretted shadows

of the trees, and glided like a great ark over the mere in black

silence, save for the dip of the blade and the drip of water. The

voyage took Igraine longer than her swim. At last, with the boat moored

at the stage, she dried her limbs and body with her hair, and took

again to shift and habit. Then she stole back to the manor, listened a

moment to Pelleas's breathing, and having lit her lamp she went to bed.

Next morning Igraine, with her deed locked up in her heart, was

preparing Pelleas a meal. He had just stirred and roused himself from

sleep with a little cry, and he was watching the girl with the mute

reflective look of one just freed from the visions of the night.

"Igraine," he said.

She turned to him with a soft smile.

"I have been dreaming," he confessed gravely.

"Dreaming, Pelleas?"

"I thought," said he, "that I saw a great dragon of gold come over the

meadows with a naked sword in his mouth, and a collar of rubies round

his throat. And he came to the mere's edge, ramping and breathing fire.

And lo! he entered into the barge there, and the barge went forth

bearing him, while all the mere's water boiled and shone about the

boat like flame. So he came to the island, and all greenness seemed to

wither before him, and with the fear of him I awoke."

Igraine shook her head at the man.

"Your dreams are distraught," she said; "it is your wound, Pelleas. In

faith we should need the great Merlin for such a vision."

"Ah," said he, "I can read you the riddle, Igraine. Our barge lies by

the land bank ready for any foe. That is where the dream touches us."

Igraine brought him a bowl of crushed bread and fruit, and made as

though to feed him.

"Never worry," she said; "the barge is moored safe at the stage."

Pelleas put the bowl aside with one hand, and stared at her from his

pillows.

"Did the barge swim the mere of herself," quoth he, "and anchor for us

so fairly?"

"No."

"Then--"

Igraine went red of a sudden, and looked at her knees.

"Sooth, Pelleas," she said, "I must have been the dragon of your dream;

God pardon me."

"Igraine!"

"I never knew I seemed so fearful a creature."

"Honour and praise--"

He half rose on his pillows in his enthusiasm. Igraine put him gently

back, and took up the bowl of bread and fruit.

"That will do, my dear Pelleas," she said; "now just lie still and have

your breakfast."

What boots it to chronicle at length their sojourn in the island manor.

Twelve days Igraine nursed the man there, giving all her heart for

service, tending him from sunrise to the fall of night. She seemed

to have no other joy than to sit and talk to him, to make music with

voice and hand, to keep his couch posied round with flowers. On waking

Pelleas would find her by him, fresh as the dawn and full of a golden

tenderness; at night his eyes closed upon her gracious figure as she

sat in the gloaming and sang. She was near to hear his voice, quick to

see his needs and to remedy them with soft hands and softer looks. The

very atmosphere about the man seemed touched and mellowed by her, and

the hours seemed to trip to the measure of a golden rhyme.

Pelleas mended very rapidly under her care. His wound, sweet and

innocent, gave him no trouble save some slight feverishness on the

third day. The sixth morning found him so stalwart of temper that

Igraine consented to his leaving bed for a morning provided he obeyed

her to the letter. His first steps were taken in the atrium with

Igraine's arm about his waist, and his upon her shoulders. So well did

he bear himself that the girl led him to the chapel, and there side

by side on the altar steps they winged up their devotion to heaven.

Igraine's prayers, be it known, were all for love; Pelleas's for the

threatening shadows over his own soul.

Daily after this innovation Igraine would make him a couch under the

great cedar tree in the garden, where he could rest shaded from the

sun, and there, morn, noon, and eve, they had much comradeship and

speech together. They would talk of God, the saints, and the souls of

men, of love and honour, and the needs of Britain. Pelleas would tell

her of his own service with Aurelius, of all the fair pomp of Lesser

Britain, where Conan had begun a goodly kingdom years ago, and where

many British folk had taken refuge. He had been to Rome as a boy, and

he described that vast city to her, or told her of the bloody fields he

had seen when the steel of Christendom met the heathen. Fresh streams

from either soul welled out, and mingled much during those summer days.

Pelleas and Igraine looked deep each into the heart of the other,

finding fine store of nobleness, of truth, and of things beautiful,

till the heart of each had treasured everything for love and for love's

desire. They were fair hours and very sweet to the two. The day seemed

a casket of gold, and the night a bowl of ebony ablaze with stars.

About this time the man Pelleas began to go down into deep waters. Many

days had passed with a flare of torches in the west; their sojourn was

drawing to a close, and the night seemed near. The haler Pelleas grew

in body, the more halt and hopeless waxed his soul. The whole world

seemed to grow wounded to his eyes; the west was wistful at evening,

and the starry sky a sob of pain. When Igraine harped and sang, each

note flew like winged death into his heart. He had no joy that was not

smitten through with anguish, no thought that was not crowned with

thorns. It was a very simple matter indeed, but perverse to utter

bitterness. Pelleas saw no hope for himself in the end. He would rock

and toss, and think at night till the darkness seemed to crush him into

a mere mass of misery. Above all there seemed to rise a great hand

holding a cross of gold, and a voice that said, "Beware thy soul and

death."

Not so was it with Igraine. To her life had no shroud, and love

prophesied of love alone. She knew what she knew, and her heart was

full of summer and the song of birds. Pelleas loved her; she would have

staked her soul on it, though she did not realise the desperate turmoil

passing in the man's clean heart. Knowing what she did, she was all for

sun and moods of radiant thought and happiness. Each day she imagined

that she would tell Pelleas of her secret; each day she gave the golden

moment to the morrow. She knew how the man's face would flame up with

the fulness of great wonder, and like a woman she hoarded anticipation

in her heart and waited.

The day soon came when Pelleas declared himself hale enough to

bear armour, though the admission was made with no great amount of

satisfaction. To test his strength he armed himself with Igraine's

help, harnessed his black horse, and rode round the island, first at

a level pace with Igraine running beside him. Then he tried a gallop,

handling spear and shield the while. Lastly, he took Igraine up to him,

and rode with her as he had ridden through the wold. Suffering nothing

from these ventures, and seeming sure in selle as ever, he declared

with heavy heart that they should sally for Winchester on the morrow.

Pelleas and Igraine passed their last evening in the island under the

great cedar in the garden. The place had deep memories for them, and

very loth were they to leave it, so fair and kind a refuge had it

proved to them in peril. Neither said much that evening, for their

thoughts were busy. As for Pelleas, he was glum and heavy-browed as

thunder, with a look in his deep eyes that spelt misery. It was as

though he were leaving his very soul in the place to ride out like a

corpse on a pilgrimage with despair. How much she might have eased him,

perhaps Igraine never knew.

The west was already red and rosy, and there was a green hush over the

meadows, and a canopy of pale porphyry in the east. All the soul of the

world seemed to lift white hands to the night in a stupor of mutest

woe. Yet the girl's mood tended towards mere sensitive regret, for the

future was not dark to her imaginings.

"You are sad, Pelleas," she said.

"I am only thinking, Igraine."

"I am sorry to leave this place."

Pelleas sighed for answer. With a contradictory spirit, born of pain,

he longed for night and the peace it would not bring. Something swore

to him that he was more to the girl than man had ever been, and yet she

seemed happy when he compared her humour with his own. The possibility

that she could dream of broken vows was never in his thought. He could

only believe that her heart was less deep than his, and the thought

only added bitterness to his mead of sorrow.

"Igraine," he said anon.

She turned to him.

"You love life?"

"Truth, Pelleas, I do."

"Then love it not, girl."

"Ah!"

"'Tis a broken bowl."

"How so?" she said, thrilling.

Pelleas turned his face from her to hide the strife thereon. He felt

as though death was in his heart, yet he spoke as quietly as though

he were telling some mundane tale, and not words conjured up by a

desperate wisdom.

"Igraine," he said, "I have lived and learnt something in my time,

and my words are honest. On earth what do we find--a lie on truth's

lips, and anguish on the face of joy. The roses bloom and die, white

hands shrivel, and harness rusts under the green grass. As for fame, it

breeds hate and jealousy, and the curse of the proud. Music is broken

by the laugh of the fool, nor can youth forget the crabbed noisomeness

of age. Women sing and pass. A man marries one night and is tombed the

next. And love, what of love? I tell you love lives only in the eyes of

woe. It is all mockery, cold damned mockery. I have said."

IX

Pelleas and Igraine were stirring soon after dawn on the morning of

their sally for Winchester. It was a summer dawn, still and stealthy;

the meadows were full of a shimmering mist, the mere spirit-wrapped,

and dappled here and there with gold.

Silent and distraught they made their last meal in the quiet manor.

Everything seemed sad and solemn, as though the stones could grieve;

the lilies by the impluvium seemed adroop, and the flowers about

Pelleas's bed were withered. After the meal Pelleas armed himself, and

went to harness his horse, while Igraine put up bread and foodstuff

into a linen cloth for their journey. Before sallying they went all

round the manor, into the chapel, where they prayed before the altar,

into bower, parlour, and viridarium. The porch with its empty bed and

withered flowers they took leave of last. There was such wistfulness

there that even the dumb things seemed to cry out in pain.

Pelleas closed the gates with bowed head, and made the sign of the

cross upon them with the pommel of his dagger. His throat seemed full

of one great muffled sob. Together they wandered for the last time

through the garden, while Igraine plucked some flowers for a keepsake.

Pelleas felt that he loved every leaf in the place like his own soul.

Then they went down to the water's edge, and, getting the horse on

board, they loosed the barge from the bank, and came slowly to the

nether shore. It might have been the fury of death, so stark and solemn

was Pelleas's face.

Before turning their backs and riding away, they stood and looked long

at the place girdled with its quiet waters. The great cedar slept there

with a hood of mist over his green poll. Like a dream island it seemed,

plucked by magic from some southern sea, fair with all fairness. Anon,

despite their grieving, the last strand cracked, and the wrench was

done. They were holding over vapoury meadows with their faces to the

west.

Pelleas was very stoical that morning. As a matter of fact he had been

awake all night, couched with misery and with thoughts that wounded

him. All night through the lagging hours he had tossed and turned,

cursing his destiny in his heart--too bitter for any prayer. What

mockery that he who had passed so long unscathed should fall into

hopeless homage to a nun. Desperate, he left his bed in the dark, and

made the garden a dim cloister until dawn. Yet in the rack of struggle

a clear voice had come to touch and dominate his being, and day had

found him steadfast. He would hold to the truth, he vowed, do his duty,

and let God judge of the measure of his gratitude. He could obey, but

not with humility; he could suffer, but not with resignation.

It was after such a night in the furnace of struggle that he forged his

temper for the days to come. He had thought to meet love with a stark

hardihood, to talk lightly, to go with unruffled brow while his heart

hungered. Nothing should move him to any emotion. He would meet destiny

like a rock, let surges beat and melt back to the sea. It was better

thus, he thought, than to go moaning for the moon.

Such was the determination that met Igraine's lighter humour that

morning. She could make nothing of the man as she rode before him. He

was bleak, dismal, yet striving to seem contented with their lot, now

conjuring up a withered smile, now lapsing into interminable silence.

His eyes were stern in measure, but there was the old light in them

when she looked deeply, and the staunch flame was there still. After

all, Pelleas's quiet humour did not trouble her very vastly. She had

her own reading of the riddle, and a word in her heart that could

unlock his trouble. Moreover, she was more than inclined to put him to

such a test as should bring his manhood to a splendid trial. Perhaps

there was some imp of vanity deep down in her woman's heart. At all

events, she suited herself to the occasion, and passed much of the time

in thought.

A ride of some seventy miles lay before them before they should come

to the gates of Winchester. Much of that region was wild forestland

and moor, bleak wastes of scrub let into woods and gloom. Occasional

meadows, and rare acres of glebe ringing some rude hamlet, broke

the shadowy desolation of the land. Great oaks, gnarled, vast, and

terrible, held giant sway amid the huddled masses of the lesser folk.

Here the boar lurked, and the wolf hunted. But, for the most, it was

dark and calamitous--a ghostly wilderness almost forsaken by man, and

given over to the savagery of beasts.

Pelleas and Igraine came upon the occasional trail of the heathen as

they went. A smoking villa, a burnt village with a dun mist hanging

over it like a shroud, and once a naked man, bruised and bloody, bound

to a tree, and shot through with arrows--such were the few sights that

remembered to them their own need of caution. The wild country had been

raided, and its sparse civilisation scattered to the woods. The crosses

at the cross-roads had been thrown down and broken. A hermitage they

came on in the woods had been sacked, and in it, to their pity, they

found the body of a dead girl. They halted there to pray for her, and

to give her burial. Pelleas dug a shallow grave under an oak, and they

left her there, and went on their way with greater caution.

Not a soul did they meet, yet Pelleas kept under cover as much as

possible for prudence' sake. He scanned well every valley or piece of

open land before crossing it, and kept under the wooelshawe whenever

the track ran near trees. Fear of the unknown, and the dear burden

that he bore, kept him alert as a goshawk for possible peril. By noon,

despite sundry halts and reconnoitrings, they had covered nearly twenty

miles, and by the evening of the same day they had added another score,

for Pelleas's horse was a powerful beast, and Igraine's weight cumbered

him little.

Towards evening it began to rain, a heavy, summer, windless shower,

that made moist rattle in the leaves, and flooded fragrant freshness

into the air. Pelleas gave Igraine his cloak, and made her wear it,

despite her excuses. As luck would have it, they came upon a little inn

built in the grey shelter of a forsaken quarry. The inn folk were still

there--an old woman, and a brat of a boy, her grandson. Seeing so great

a knight, the beldam was ready enough to give them lodgings, and what

welcome she could muster. She spread a supper of goat's milk, brown

bread, and venison--not a bad table for such a hovel. The meal over,

she pointed Pelleas with a leer to a little inner room that boasted a

rough bed, a water-pot, and ewer.

"We will not disturb ye," she said; "my lad has foddered the horse. You

would be stirring early?"

Pelleas gave the woman her orders, and sent Igraine into the inner

room. He made himself a bed of dried bracken before her door, and laid

himself there so that none could enter save over his body. The woman

and the boy slept on straw in a corner. In this wise they passed the

night.

On the morrow, after more goat's milk and brown bread, with some wild

strawberries to smooth it, they sallied early, and held on their way to

Winchester. The shower of the night had given place to fair weather,

and a fresh breeze blowing from the west. Soon the sun was up in such

strength that the green woods lost their dankness, and the leaves their

dew. It was the very morning for a ride.

If possible, Pelleas was even more gloomy than on the day before. There

was such a level air of dejection over his whole being that Igraine

began to have grave qualms of conscience, and to suffer the reproaches

of a pity that grew more clamorous hour by hour. None the less, maugre

the man's sorry humour, there was a certain stealthy joy in it all, for

Pelleas, by his very moodiness, flattered her tenderness for him not a

little. She began to see, in very truth, how staunch the man was; how

he meant to honour to the letter her imagined vows, though his love

grieved like a winged merlion. His great strength became more and more

apparent. A lighter spirit would have gone with the wind, or made great

moan over the whole business. Pelleas, she saw, was striving to buckle

his sorrow deep in his bosom, to save her the pain of knowing his

distress. There was nothing little about the man. Palpably he had not

succeeded eminently in his attempt to spur a wounded spirit into light

courtliness and easy hypocrisy. Still, that was not his fault; it only

said the more for his love.

It was not till noon had passed that Pelleas, with a heavy courage,

constrained himself to speak calmly of their parting. Even then he was

so eager to shape his speech into mere courtesies, that he overdid the

thing, more than betraying himself to the girl's quick wit.

He had questioned her as to her friends in Winchester, and her purposes

for the future. His rambling took somewhat of a didactic turn as he

laboured at his mentorship.

"There is a fair abbey within the walls," he said; "I have heard it

nobly spoken of both as to devoutness and comfort. Their rules are not

of such iron caste as at some other holy houses; the library is good,

and there is a well-planted garden. The abbess is a gracious and kindly

woman, and of high family. I have often had speech with her myself, and

can vouch for her courtliness and benevolence. Assuredly you may find

very safe and peaceful harbour there."

Igraine smiled to herself at the callous benignity of his counsel. He

might have been her grandfather by his manner.

"You see," she said naively, "I do not like being caged; it spoils

one's temper so. I have an uncle in the place--an uncle by marriage--a

man not loved vastly by the proud folk of my own family. He is a

goldsmith by trade, and is named Radamanth."

Pelleas's quick answer was not prophetic of great favour.

"Radamanth," he said--"a gentleman who weighs his religion by the

pound, and is seen much at church. Pardon my frankness, I had this

gold chain of him. He is rich as Rome, and has high rank among the

merchants."

"So I had heard," she answered.

Pelleas looked into space with a most judicial air.

"You do not think of going to a secular house," he said.

Igraine smiled to herself, and halted a moment in her answer.

"Why not?" she said.

"You--a nun?"

"Pelleas, I do not see why it is necessary for holiness to be bricked

up like a frog in a wall in order to escape corruption. Why, you are

eating your own words."

"But you have vows," he said.

"I have; and doubts also."

"Doubts?" quoth the man, with a quick look, thrilling inwardly.

"Doubts, Pelleas, doubts."

She caught his eyes with hers, and gave him one long, deep stare that

made him quake as though all that had been flame within him--that which

he had sought to tread to ashes--had but spread redly into her bosom.

There was no parrying such a message. It smote him blind in a moment.

The spiritual bastions of his soul seemed to reel and rock as though

some chaos had broken on their stones. There was great outcry in his

heart, as of a leaguer when guards and stormers are at grapple on the

walls. "Cross! Holy Cross!" cried Conscience, in the moil. "Yield ye,

yield ye, Pelleas," sang a voice more subtle, "yield ye, and let Love

in!" He sat stiff in the saddle, and shut his eyes to the day, while

the fight boiled on within him. Now Love had him heart and hand; now

Honour, blind and bleeding, struggled in and stemmed the rout. He was

won and lost, lost and won, a dozen times in a minute.

Recovered somewhat, he made bold to question Igraine yet further.

"Tell me your doubts, girl," he said.

"They are deep, Pelleas, deep as the sea."

"Whence came they, then?"

"Some great power put them in my heart, and they are steadfast as

death."

Again the wild flush of liberty swept Pelleas like wind.

"Tell me, Igraine," he said, in a gasp.

She put her fingers gently on his lips. "Patience--patience," she said,

"and perhaps I will tell them to you, Pelleas, ere long."

Thus much she suffered him to go, and no further. Her quick instinct

had read him nearly to the "Explicit," and there she halted, content

for an hour or a day. Her love was singing like a lark in the blue.

She beamed on the man in spirit streams of pride and tumultuous

tenderness. How she would comfort him in the end! He should carry her

into Winchester on his horse, and she would lodge there, but not at the

great inn that harboured souls for heaven. She would have the bow and

the torch for her signs, and possibly the Church might serve her in

other fashion. Like a lotus eater, she dallied with all these dreams in

her heart.

With the sun low in the west, Pelleas and Igraine were still three

leagues or so from Winchester. The day was passing gloriously, with

the radiant acolytes of evening swinging their jasper censers in the

sky. The two were riding on a pine-crowned ridge, and the stretch of

wilderness beyond seemed wrapped in one mysterious blaze of smoking

gold. Hills and woods were glittering shadows, like spirit things in a

spirit atmosphere. The west was a great curtain of transcendent gold.

Pelleas and Igraine could not look at it without great wonder.

Presently they came to a little glade, green and quiet, with a clear

pool in it ringed round with rushes. A lush cushion of grass and moss

swept from the water to the bases of the trees. It was as quaint and

sweet a nook as they had passed that day. The place, with its solitude

and stillness, pleased Igraine very greatly.

"What say you, Pelleas," she said, "let us off-saddle, and harbour here

the night. This little refuge will serve us more kindly than a ride in

the dark to Winchester."

Pelleas looked round about him, knelt for once without struggle to his

own inmost wishes, and agreed with Igraine.

"Very good," he said. "I can build you a bower to sleep in. There are

hazels yonder--just the stuff for a booth. The water in the pool there

looks sweet enough to drink, and we have ample in the cloth for a

supper."

Igraine gave him no more leisure to moralise on such trifles. She

sprang down to the cushiony turf, and took his horse by the bridle.

"I will be master again for once, Pelleas," she said, "since, well of

your wound, you have played the tyrant. At least you shall obey me

to-night."

Pelleas, half in a stupor, gave up fighting his own heart for a while,

and fell in with Igraine's humour. She was strangely full of smiles and

quiet glances; her eyes would meet his, flash, thrill him, and then

evade his soul with sudden mischief. She tethered his horse for him,

and then, making him sit down under a tree, she began to unarm him,

kneeling confidently by his side. Her fingers lingered over-long on the

buckles. When she lifted off his helmet, her hands touched his face

and forehead, and set him blushing like a boy. The very nearness of

her--her breath, her dress, her lips and eyes so near to his--made him

like so much wax--passive, obedient, yet red as fire.

When she had ended her task, she gave him his naked sword and her

orders.

"Now you may cut me hazels for a bower, Pelleas," she said. "I will

have it here under this tree where the moss is soft and dry. This

summer night one could sleep under the stars and never feel the dew."

Pelleas rose up and did her bidding. The green boughs were ready to

his great sword, as it gleamed and glimmered in the wizard light. He

cut two forked stakes, and set them upright in the ground, with a pole

between them. Then he built up branches about this centrepiece till

the whole was roofed and walled with shelving green; he spread his

red cloak therein for a carpet. Igraine sat and watched his labour.

Life seemed to have rushed nearly to its zenith, and her thoughts were

soaring in regions of gold.

The black moth night had come into the sky with his golden-spotted

wings all spread. It was time for idyllic love, pure looks, and the

touch of hands. The billowy bosoms of the trees rolled sombrously

above, and the little pool was like a wizard's glass, black and deep

with sheeny mysteries.

Igraine beckoned Pelleas to a seat on the grass bank at her feet when

he had finished. There was a light on her face that the man had not

seen before, a kind of quiet rapture, a veil of exultation, as though

her maidenhood were flowering gold under a net of pinkest satin. She

had loosened her hair in straight streams upon her shoulders, and her

habit lay open to the very base of her shapely throat. She sat there

and looked at him, with hands clasped in her lap, and her grey gown

rising and falling markedly as she breathed. It seemed to Pelleas that

there was nothing in the whole universe save twilight, two eyes, a

stirring bosom, and two wistful lips.

They had been speaking of their ride, and of the many strange things

that had befallen them during their adventures together. Igraine had

waxed strangely tender in her talk, and had spoken subtle bodeful

words that meant much at such a season. She was flinging bonds about

Pelleas that made him exult and suffer. His heart seemed great within

him and ready to break, for the blood that bubbled and yearned in it in

glorious anguish.

"To-morrow," said the girl, "we enter Winchester, and I have known you,

Pelleas, two weeks and some few hours more. You seem to have been in my

life many years."

Words flooded into Pelleas's heart, and stifled all struggle for a

moment. He was breathing like a hunted thing.

"Igraine," he said.

"Pelleas."

"I never lived till our lives were joined."

Igraine gave a little gasp, and bent over him suddenly, her eyes aglow,

her hair falling down into his face.

"Kiss me, Pelleas," she said; "in the name of God, kiss me."

Pelleas gave a great groan.

"Girl, I dare not."

"You dare."

"Igraine?"

She bent herself till her lips were over his, and both their heads were

clouded in her hair. Her eyes glimmered, her breath beat on his, he saw

the whiteness of her teeth between her half-closed lips.

"Igraine," he said again, half in a groan.

She did not answer him, but simply took his face between her hands and

looked into his eyes.

"Coward, Pelleas."

Power seemed to go from the man in a moment. He put his hands upon

her shoulders and looked at her as in a splendid dream. Her face was

beautifully peevish, and there lurked an infinite hunger on her lips.

Then with a great woe in his heart he drew her face down to his and

kissed her. There was such sweet pain in the grand despair of it all

that he felt faint for strength of loving. Before he had gathered

breath, Igraine had slipped away from him and was in the bower.

"Till dawn, Pelleas, till dawn," she said.

"Ah, Igraine!"

"Go and sleep, Pelleas; I will talk to you on the morrow."

X

With the girl's face lost behind the green eaves of the bower, Pelleas

fell of a sudden into great darkness of soul. It was as though the moon

had passed behind a cloud, and left him agrope in the woods without

light and without guide. Igraine had bidden him to go and sleep. She

might as well have told the sea to be still in the lap of the wind.

Going aside towards the mouth of the glade so that he might not disturb

the girl, he began to tread the grass between brake and brake, while

he held parley with his turbulent and seething thoughts. What was

Igraine to be to him on the morrow? She had broken the back of his

determination, and beaten down his strength in those grand moments of

sudden passion. The rich June of her beauty was still on his sight. Her

grace, her infinite tenderness, the purity of her, were all set about

his soul like angels round a dreamer's bed. She was light and darkness,

sound and silence; she had the round world in her red heart, and the

stars seemed to go about her in companies of gold. Never had Pelleas

thought idolatry so smooth and swift a sin. He had never believed that

love in so brief a space could make such wrack of madness in a hale and

healthy body.

As he walked under the giant limbs of the great trees he tried to

grapple the thing with reason, to untangle this knot by natural logic.

These were the bleak facts, and they stood up like white headstones in

the night. He loved Igraine, and Igraine he knew loved him in turn;

but Igraine was a nun despite her womanliness, and there lay the core

of the whole matter. If he obeyed love he must disgrace the girl

with broken vows, for like a staunchly taught Christian of somewhat

stern and primitive mould he stood in honest awe of things spiritual

and ecclesiastic. His very love for the girl made him fearful of in

any way dishonouring her. If he held to the trite observations of a

prompted conscience, then he must forswear love, and leave Igraine to

the miserable celibacy of the Church, that chrysalid state that never

burgeons into the fuller, fairer life of perfect womanhood. These were

the two forces that held him shaken in the balance.

Long while he went east and west under the trees with the old gloom

flooding back like thunder. His whole thought seemed warped into

bitterness; the blatant mockery of it all grinned and screamed like a

harpy. Again with clarion cry and rosy flush of banners love stormed in

and held law at death's door for a season. Again came the inevitable

repulse, the moaning lapse of desire, while the black banner of the

Church flapped once more over him in dismal sanctity. Pelleas found

no shred of peace wheresoever he looked. Who has not learnt that when

anarchy is in the heart, the whole world seems out of gear?

As the night passed, love seemed to faint and wax pale before an

ever-darkening visage that declared despair. A sense of inevitable

gloom seemed to weigh down desire, and to drown hope in misery. Pelleas

grew calmer at heart, though his thoughts were no less woeful. Love's

voice, stifled and wistful, came like an elfin voice through woods,

while the cry of conscience was like the thundering surge of the wind

through trees. He grew less restless, more apathetic. Coming to a halt

he leant against an oak's bossy trunk, and stood motionless as in a

stupor for an hour or more. The blight of soul-sickness was on him, and

he was like one dazed by a great fever.

Presently he went back slowly to Igraine's shelter of boughs, and stood

near it--thinking. Then he dropped on his hands and knees, crept up

close, and parting the leaves looked in on her as she slept, wrapped in

his red cloak. He could see her face indistinctly white in a wealth of

shadows; he could hear her breathing. Then he crept away again like a

wounded thing, and lay for a time with his face in his arms, grieving

without a sound.

Again, a second time, he crept to the bower, and listened there on his

knees. Turning his face to the night he tried to pray, vainly indeed,

for his heart seemed dumb. A corner of Igraine's gown lay near his

hands at the entry; he went down on hands and knees and kissed it. Then

he took the little gold cross from his bosom, the cross Morgan had

held, and laid it on the grass at Igraine's feet. He also put a purse

with a few gold coins in it beside the cross. When he had done this he

crept away mutely, and began to arm in silence.

Once, as he was buckling on his casque, he thought he heard Igraine

stirring. He kept very still, with a sudden, wild wish in his heart

that she would wake and save him, but the sound proved nothing. He

finished buckling on his harness, girded his sword, and hung his shield

about his neck. Then he went to the little pool, and, kneeling down,

dashed water in his face, and drank from his palms. He felt faint and

bruised after the night's battle.

Once more he went and stood by the hazel shelter as though for a last

leave-taking before the strong wrench came. The little pavilion of

leaves seemed to hold all hope and human joy in its narrow compass.

Pelleas stood and took long leave of the girl in his heart. He wished

her all the fair fortune he could think of, prayed for her as well as

he could in a broken, wounded way, and then with a great sob he turned

and left her sleeping. His black horse was tethered not far away. As

he went he staggered, and seemed blind for a moment. He soon had the

girths tightened, and was in the saddle, riding away dry-eyed and

broken-souled into the night.

Presently the dawn came, redly, gloriously, like a marriage pageant.

Igraine, reft from dreams, woke with a little shiver of joy in her

pavilion of green boughs. She lay still awhile, and let her thoughts

dance like the motes in the shimmer of sunlight that stole in between

the branches. The day seemed warm and glorious, for that morning was

she not to tell Pelleas of the secret she had kept from him so many

days, the words she had hoarded in her heart like love? It would be a

fitting end, she thought, to the rare novitiate each had passed in the

heart of the other.

Hearing no stir about her shelter, she thought Pelleas asleep, and

peeped out presently between the boughs to bid him wake. Glade and pool

lay peacefully in green and silver, but she saw no knight sleeping,

no war-horse standing under the trees. Starting up, the gold cross

glinting on the grass, with the purse beside it, appealed her with mute

tragedy. She caught them up, trembling, and with sudden fear in her

heart she went out into the glade and searched from brake to brake. It

was barren as her joy. Pelleas had gone.