And let none gainsay my story, for that I was not my master's servant at the time, and saw not the truth with mine own eyes. I had it from the Sieur Rudel's lips, and more than once when he was vexed at the aspersions thrown upon his name. But he was ever proud, as befitted so knightly a gentleman, and deigned not to argue or plead his honour to the world, but only with his sword. Thus, then, it falls to me to right him as skilfully as I may. Though, alas! I fear my skill is little worth, and calumnies are ever fresh to the palate, while truth needs the sauce of a bright fancy to command it.

These columnies have assuredly gained some credit, because with ladies my lord was ever blithe and debonnaire. That he loved many I do not deny; but while he loved, he loved right loyally, and, indeed, it is no small honour to be loved by a man of so much worship, even for a little—the which many women thought also, and those amongst the fairest. And I doubt not that as long as she lived, he loved his wife Solita no less ardently than those with whom he fell in after she had most unfortunately died.

The Sieur Rudel was born within the castle of Princess Joceliande, and there grew to childhood and from childhood to youth, being ever entreated with great amity and love for his own no less than for his father's sake. Though of a slight and delicate figure, he excelled in all manly exercises and sports and in venery and hawking. There was not one about the court that could equal him. Books too he read, and in many languages, labouring at philosophies and logics, so that had you but heard him speak, and not marked the hardihood of his limbs and his open face, you might have believed you were listening to some doxical monk.

In the tenth year of his age came Solita to the castle, whence no man knew, nor could they ever learn more than this, that she sailed out of the grey mists of a November morning to our bleak Brittany coast in a white-painted boat. A fisherman drew the boat to land, perceiving it when he was casting his nets, and found a woman-child therein, cushioned upon white satin; and marvelling much at the richness of her purveyance, for even the sail of the boat was of white silk, he bore her straightway to the castle. And the abbot took her and baptised her and gave her Sola for a name. "For," said he, "she hath come alone and none knoweth her parentage or place." In time she grew to exceeding beauty, with fair hair clustering like finest silk above her temples and curling waywardly about her throat; wondrous fair she was and white, shaming the snowdrops, so that all men stopped and gazed at her as she passed.

And the Princess Joceliande, perceiving her, joined her to the company of her hand-maidens and took great delight in her for her modesty and beauty, so that at last she changed her name. "Sola have you been called till now," she said, "but henceforth shall your name be Solita, as who shall say 'you have become my wont.'"

Meanwhile the Sieur Rudel was advanced from honour to honour, until he stood ever at the right hand of the Princess, and ruled over her kingdom as her chancellor and vicegerent. Her enemies he conquered and added their lands and sovereignties to hers, until of all the kings in those parts, none had such power and dominions as the Princess Joceliande. Many ladies, you may believe, cast fond eyes on him, and dropped their gauntlet that he might bend to them upon his knee and pick it up, but his heart they could not bend, strive how they might, and to each and all he showed the same courtesy and gentleness. For he had seen the maiden Solita, and of an evening when the Court was feasting in the hall and the music of harps rippled sweetly in the ears, he would slip from the table as one that was busied in statecraft, and in company with Solita pace the terrace in the dark, beneath the lighted windows. Yet neither spoke of love, though loving was their intercourse. Solita for that her modesty withheld her, and she feared even to hope that so great a lord should give his heart to her keeping; Rudel because he had not achieved enough to merit she should love him. "In a little," he would mutter, "in a little! One more thing must I do, and then will I claim my guerdon of the Princess Joceliande."

Now this one more thing was the highest and most dangerous emprise of all that he had undertaken. Beyond the confines of the kingdom there dwelt a great horde of men that had come to Brittany from the East in many deep ships and had settled upon the coast, whence they would embark and, travelling hard by the land, burn and ravage the sea-borders for many days.

Against these did the Sieur Rudel make war, and gathering the nobles and yeomen he mustered them in boats and prepared to sail forth to what he believed was the last of his adventures, knowing not that it was indeed but the beginning. And to the princess he said: "Lady, I have served you faithfully, as a gentleman should serve his queen. From nothing have I drawn back that could establish or increase you. Therefore when I get me home again, one boon will I ask of you, and I pray you of your mercy grant it me."

"I will well," replied the princess. "For such loyal service hath no queen known before—nay, not even Dame Helen among the Trojans."

So right gladly did the Sieur Rudel depart from her, and down he walked among the sandhills, where he found Solita standing in a hollow in the midst of a cloud of sand which the sharp wind whirled about her. Nothing she said to him, but she stood with downcast head and eyes that stung with tears.

"Solita," said he, "the Princess hath granted me such boon as I may ask on my return. What say you?"

And she answered in a low voice. "Who am I, my lord, that I should oppose the will of the princess? A nameless maiden, meet only to yoke with a nameless yeoman!"

At that the Sieur Rudel laughed and said, "Look you into a mirror, sweet! and your face will gainsay your words."

She lifted her eyes to his and the light came into them again, so that they danced behind the tears, and Rudel clipped her about the waist for all that he had not as yet merited her, and kissed her upon the lips and the forehead and upon her white hands and wrists.

But she, gazing past his head, saw the blowing sands beyond and the armed men in the boats upon the sea, and "O, Rudel, my sweet lord!" she cried, "never till this moment did I know how barren and lonely was the coast. Come back, and that soon—for of a truth I dread to be left alone!"

"In God's good time and if so He will, I will come back, and from the moment of my coming I will never again depart from you."

"Promise me that!" she said, clinging to him with her arms twined about his neck, and he promised her, and so, comforting her a little more, he got him into his boat and sailed away upon his errand.

But of all this, the Princess Joceliande knew nothing. From her balcony in the castle she saw the Sieur Rudel sail forth. He stood upon the poop, the wind blowing the hair back from his face, and as she watched his straight figure, she said, "A boon he shall ask, but a greater will I grant. Surely no man ever did such loyal service but for love, and for love's sake, he shall share my throne with me." With that she wept a little for fear he might be slain or ever he should return; but she remembered from how many noble exploits he had come scatheless, and so taking heart once more she fell to thinking of his black locks and clear olive face and darkly shining eyes. For, in truth, these outward qualities did more enthral and delight her than his most loyal services.

But for the maiden Solita, she got her back to her chamber and, remembering her lord's advice, spied about for a mirror. No mirror, however, did she possess, having never used aught else but a basin of clear water, and till now found it all-sufficient, so little curious had she been concerning the whiteness of her beauty. Thereupon she thought for a little, and unbinding her hair so that it fell to her feet in a golden cloud, hied her to Joceliande, who bade her take a book of chivalry and read aloud. But Solita so bent her head that her hair fell ever across the pages and hindered her from reading, and each time she put it roughly back from her forehead with some small word of anger as though she was vexed.

"What ails you, child?" asked the princess.

"It is my hair," replied Solita. But the princess paid no heed. She heard little, indeed, even of what was read, but sat by the window gazing out across the grey hungry sea, and bethinking her of the Sieur Rudel and his gallant men. And again Solita let her hair fall upon the scroll, and again she tossed it back, saying, "Fie! Fie!"

"What ails you, child?" the princess asked.

"It is my hair," she replied, and Joceliande, smiling heedlessly, bade her read on. So she read until Joceliande bade her stop and called to her, and Solita came over to the window and knelt by the side of the princess, so that her hair fell across the wrist of Joceliande and fettered it. "It is ever in the way," said Solita, and she loosed it from the wrist of the princess. But the princess caught the silky coils within her hand and smoothed them tenderly. "That were easily remedied," she replied with a smile, and she sought for the scissors which hung at her girdle.

But Solita bethought her that many men had praised the colour and softness of her hair—why, she could not tell, for dark locks alone were beautiful in her eyes. Howbeit men praised hers, and for Sieur Rudel's sake she would fain be as praiseworthy as might be. Therefore she stayed Joceliande's hand and cried aloud in fear, "Nay, nay, sweet lady, 'tis all the gold I have, and I pray you leave it me who am so poor."

And the Princess Joceliande laughed, and replaced the scissors in her girdle. "I did but make pretence, to try you," she said, "for, in truth, I had begun to think you were some holy angel and no woman, so little share had you in a woman's vanities. But 'tis all unbound, and I wonder not that it hinders you. Let me bind it up!"

And while the princess bound the hair cunningly in a coronal upon her head, Solita spake again hesitatingly, seeking to conceal her craft.

"Madame, it is easy for you to bind my hair, but for myself, I have no mirror and so dress it awkwardly."

Joceliande laughed again merrily at the words. "Dear heart!" she cried. "What man is it? Hast discovered thou art a woman after all? First thou fearest for thy hair, and now thou askest a mirror. But in truth I like thee the better for thy discovery." And she kissed Solita very heartily, who blushed that her secret was so readily found out, and felt no small shame at her lack of subtlety. For many ladies, she knew, had secrets—ay, even from their bosom lords and masters—-and kept them without effort in the subterfuge, whereas she, poor fool, betrayed hers at the first word.

"And what man is it?" laughed the princess. "For there is not one that deserves thee, as thou shalt judge for thyself." Whereupon she summoned one of her servants and bade him place a mirror in the bed-chamber of Solita, wherein she might see herself from top to toe.

"Art content?" she asked. "Thus shalt thou see thyself, without blemish or fault even for this crown of hair to the heel of thy foot. But I fear me the sight will change all thy thoughts and incline thee to scorn of thy suitor."

Then she stood for a little watching the sunlight play upon the golden head and pry into the soft shadows of the curls, and her face saddened and her voice faltered.

"But what of me, Solita?" she said. "All men give me reverence, not one knows me for a woman. I crave the bread of love, all day long I hunger for it, but they offer me the polished stones of courtesy and respect, and so I starve slowly to my death. What of me, Solita? What of me?"

But Solita made reply, soothing her:

"Madame," she said, "all your servants love you, but it beseems them not to flaunt it before your face, so high are you placed above them. You order their fortunes and their lives, and surely 'tis nobler work than meddling with this idle love-prattle."

"Nay," replied the princess, laughing in despite of her heaviness, for she noted how the blush on Solita's cheek belied the scorn of her tongue. "There spoke the saint, and I will hear no more from her now that I have found the woman. Tell me, did he kiss you?"

And Solita blushed yet more deeply, so that even her neck down to her shoulders grew rosy, and once or twice she nodded her head, for her lips would not speak the word.

Then Joceliande sighed to herself and said—

"And yet, perchance, he would not die for you, whereas men die for me daily, and from mere obedience. How is he called?"

"Madame," she replied, "I may not tell you, for all my pride in him. 'Twill be for my lord to answer you in his good time. But that he would die for me, if need there were, I have no doubt. For I have looked into his eyes and read his soul."

So she spake with much spirit, upholding Sieur Rudel; but Joceliande was sorely grieved for that Solita would not trust her with her lover's name, and answered bitterly:

"And his soul which you did see was doubtless your own image. And thus it will be with the next maiden who looks into his eyes. Her own image will she see, and she will go away calling it his soul, and not knowing, poor fool, that it has already faded from his eyes."

At this Solita kept silence, deeming it unnecessary to make reply. It might be as the princess said with other men and other women, but the Sieur Rudel had no likeness to other men, and in possessing the Sieur Rudel's love she was far removed from other women. Therefore did she keep silence, but Joceliande fancied that she was troubled by the words which she had spoken, and straightway repented her of them.

"Nay, child," she said, and she laid her hand again upon Solita's head. "Take not the speech to heart. 'Tis but the plaint of a woman whose hair is withered from its brightness and who grows peevish in her loneliness. But open your mind to me, for you have twined about my heart even as your curls did but now twine and coil about my wrist, and the more for this pretty vanity of yours. Therefore tell me his name, that I may advance him."

But once more Solita did fob her off, and the princess would no longer question her, but turned her wearily to the window.

"All day long," she said, "I listen to soft speeches and honeyed tongues, and all night long I listen to the breakers booming upon the sands, and in truth I wot not which sound is the more hollow."

Such was the melancholy and sadness of her voice that the tears sprang into Solita's eyes and ran down her cheeks for very pity of Joceliande.

"Think not I fail in love to you, sweet princess," she cried. "But I may not tell you, though I would be blithe and proud to name him. But 'tis for him to claim me of you, and I must needs wait his time."

But Joceliande would not be comforted, and chiding her roughly, sent her to her chamber. So Solita departed out of her sight, her heart heavy with a great pity, though little she understood of Joceliande's distress. For this she could not know: that at the sight of her white beauty the Princess Joceliande was ashamed.

And coming into her chamber, Solita beheld the mirror ranged against the wall, and long she stood before it, being much comforted by the image which she saw. From that day ever she watched the ladies of the court, noting jealously if any might be more fair than she whom Sieur Rudel had chosen; and often of a night when she was troubled by the aspect of some fair and delicate new-comer, she would rise from her couch and light a taper, and so gaze at herself until the fear of her unworthiness diminished. For there were none that could compare with her in daintiness and fair looks ever came to the castle of the Princess Joceliande.

But of the Sieur Rudel, though oft she thought, she never spake, biding his good time, and the princess questioned her in vain. For she, whose heart hitherto had lain plain to see, like a pebble in a clear brook of water, had now learnt all the sweet cunning of love's duplicity.

Thus the time drew on towards the Sieur Rudel's home-coming, and ever the twain looked out across the sea for the black boats to round the bluff and take the beach—Joceliande from her balcony, Solita from the window of her little chamber in the tower; and each night the princess gave orders to light a beacon on the highest headland that the wayfarers might steer safely down that red path across the tumbling waters.

So it fell that one night both ladies beheld two ships swim to the shore, and each made dolorous moan, seeing how few of the goodly company that sailed forth had got them home again, and wondering in sore distress whether Rudel had returned with them or no.

But in a little there came a servant to the princess and told of one Sir Broyance de Mille-Faits, a messenger from the neighbouring kingdom of Broye, that implored instant speech with her. And being admitted before all the Court assembled in the great hall, he fell upon his knees at the foot of the princess, and, making his obeisance, said—

"Fair Lady Joceliande, I crave a boon, and I pray you of your gentleness to grant it me."

"But what boon, good Sir Broyance?" replied the princess. "I know you for a true and loyal gentleman who has ever been welcome at my castle. Speak, then, your need, and if so be I may, you shall find me complaisant to your request."

Thereupon, Sir Broyance took heart and said:

"Since our king died, God rest his soul, there has been no peace or quiet in our kingdom of Broye. 'Tis rent with strife and factions, so that no man may dwell in it but he must fight from morn to night, and withal win no rest for the morrow. The king's three sons contend for the throne, and meanwhile is the country eaten up. Therefore am I sent by many, and those our chiefest gentlemen, to ask you to send us Sieur Rudel, that he may quell these conflicts and rule over us as our king."

So Sir Broyance spake and was silent, and a great murmur and acclamation rose about the hall for that the Sieur Rudel was held in such honour and worship even beyond his own country. But for the Princess Joceliande, she sat with downcast head, and for a while vouchsafed no reply. For her heart was sore at the thought that Sieur Rudel should go from her.

"There is much danger in the adventure," she said at length, doubtfully.

"Were there no danger, madame," he replied, "we should not ask Sieur Rudel of you to be our leader, and great though the danger be, greater far is the honour. For we offer him a kingdom."

Then the princess spake again to Sir Broyance:

"It may not be," she said. "Whatever else you crave, that shall you have, and gladly will I grant it you. But the Sieur Rudel is the flower of our Court, he stands ever at my right hand, and woe is me if I let him go, for I am only a woman."

"But, madame, for his knighthood's sake, I pray you assent to our prayer," said Sir Broyance. "Few enemies have you, but many friends, whereas we are sore pressed on every side."

But the princess repeated: "I am only a woman," and for a long while he made his prayer in vain.

At last, however, the princess said:

"For his knighthood's sake thus far will I yield to you: Bide here within my castle until Sieur Rudel gets him home, and then shall you make your prayer to him, and by his answer will I be bound."

"That I will well," replied Sir Broyance, bethinking him of the Sieur Rudel's valour, and how that he had a kingdom to proffer to him.

But the Princess Joceliande said to herself:

"I, too, will offer him a kingdom. My throne shall he share with me;" and so she entertained Sir Broyance right pleasantly until the Sieur Rudel should get him back from the foray. Meanwhile she would say to Solita, "He shall not go to Broye, for in truth I need him;" and Solita would laugh happily, replying, "It is truth: he will not go to Broye," and thinking thereto silently, "but it is not the princess who will keep him, but even I, her poor handmaiden. For I have his promise never to depart from me." So much confidence had her mirror taught her, as it ever is with women.

But despite them both did the Sieur Rudel voyage to Broye and rule over the kingdom as its king, and how that came about ye shall hear.

Now on the fourth day after the coming of Sir Broyance, the Princess Joceliande was leaning over the baluster of her balcony and gazing seawards as was her wont. The hours had drawn towards evening, and the sun stood like a glowing wheel upon the farthest edge of the sea's grey floor, when she beheld a black speck crawl across its globe, and then another and another, to the number of thirty. Thereupon, she knew that the Sieur Rudel had returned, and joyfully she summoned her tirewomen and bade them coif and robe her as befitted a princess. A coronet of gold and rubies they set upon her head, and a robe of purple they hung about her shoulders. With pearls they laced her neck and her arms, and with pearls they shod her feet, and when she saw the ships riding at their anchorage, and the Sieur Rudel step forth amid the shouts of the sailors, then she hied her to the council-chamber and prepared to give him instant audience. Yet for all her jewels and rich attire, she trembled like a common wench at the approach of her lover, and feared that the loud beating of her heart would drown the sound of his footsteps in the passage.

But the Sieur Rudel came not, and she sent a messenger to inquire why he tarried, and the messenger brought word and said:

"He is with the maiden Solita in the tower."

Then the princess stumbled as though she were about to fall, and her women came about her. But she waved them back with her hand, and so stood shivering for a little. "The night blows cold," she said; "I would the lamps were lit." And when her servants had lighted the council-chamber, she sent yet another messenger to Sieur Rudel, bidding him instantly come to her, and waited in great bitterness of spirit. For she remembered how that she had promised to grant him the boon that he should ask, and much she feared that she knew what that boon was.

Now leave we the Princess Joceliande, and hie before her messenger to the chamber of Solita. No pearls or purple robes had she to clad her beauty in, but a simple gown of white wool fastened with a silver girdle about the waist, and her hair she loosed so that it rippled down her shoulders and nestled round her ears and face.

Thither the Sieur Rudel came straight from the sea, and—

"Love," he said, kissing her, "it has been a weary waste of days and nights, and yet more weary for thee than for me. For stern work was there ever to my hand—ay, and well-nigh more than I could do; but for thee nought but to wait."

"Yet, my dear lord," she replied, "the princess did give me this mirror, wherein I could see myself from top to toe, and a great comfort has it been to me."

So she spake, and the messenger from the princess brake in upon them, bidding the Sieur Rudel hasten to the council-chamber, for that the Princess Joceliande waited this long while for his coming.

"Now will I ask for the fulfilment of her promise," said Rudel to Solita, "and to-night, sweet, I will claim thee before the whole Court." With that he got him from the chamber and, following the messenger, came to where the princess awaited him.

"Madame," he said, "good tidings! By God's grace we have won the victory over your enemies. Never again will they buzz like wasps about your coasts, but from this day forth they will pay you yearly truage."

"Sir," she replied, rebuking him shrewdly, "indeed you bring me good tidings, but you bring them over-late. For here have I tarried for you this long while, and it beseems neither you nor me."

"Madame," he answered, "I pray you acquit me of the fault and lay the blame on Love. For when sweet Cupid thrones a second queen in one's heart beside the first, what wonder that a man forgets his duty? And now I would that of your gentleness you would grant me your maiden Solita for wife."

"That I may not," returned Joceliande, stricken to the soul at that image of a second queen. "A nameless child, and my handmaiden! Sieur Rudel, it befits a man to look above him for a wife."

"And that, madame," he answered, "in very truth I do. Moreover, though no man knows Solita's parentage and place, yet must she be of gentle nurture, else had there been no silk sail to float her hitherwards; and so much it liketh you to grant my boon, for God's love, I pray you, hold your promise."

Thereupon was the princess sore distressed for that she had given her promise. Howbeit she said: "Since it is so, and since my maiden Solita is the boon you crave, I give her to you;" and so dismissed the Sieur Rudel from her presence, and getting her back to her chamber, made moan out of all measure.

"Lord Jesu," she cried, "of all my kingdom and barony, but one thing did I hunger for and covet, and that one thing this child, whom of my kindness I loved and fostered, hath traitorously robbed me of! Why did I take her from the sea?"

So she wept for a great while, until she bethought her of a remedy. Then she wiped her tears and gave order that Sir Broyance should come to her. To him she said: "To-night at the high feast you shall make your prayer to the Lord Rudel, and I myself will join with you, so that he shall become your leader and rule over you as king."

So she spake, thinking that when the Sieur Rudel had departed, she would privily put Solita to death—openly she dared not do it, for the great love the nobles bore towards Rudel—and when Solita was dead, then would she send again for Rudel and share her siege with him. Sir Broyance, as ye may believe, was right glad at her words, and made him ready for the feast. Hither, when the company was assembled, came the Sieur Rudel, clad in a green tunic edged with fur of a white fox, and a chain set with stones of great virtue about his neck. His hose were green and of the finest silk, and on his feet he wore shoes of white doeskin, and the latchets were of gold. So he came into the hall, and seeing him thus gaily attired with all his harness off, much did all marvel at his knightly prowess. For in truth he looked more like some tender minstrel than a gallant warrior. Then up rose Sir Broyance and said;

"From the kingdom of Broye the nobles send greeting to the Sieur Rudel, and a message."

And with that he set forth his errand and request; but the Sieur Rudel laughed and answered:

"Sir Broyance, great honour you do me, and so, I pray, tell your countrymen of Broye. But never more will I draw sword or feuter spear, for this day hath the Princess Joceliande granted me her maiden Solita for wife, and by her side I will bide till death."

Thereupon rose a great murmur of astonishment within the hall, the men lamenting that the Sieur Rudel would lead them no more to battle, and the women marvelling to each other that he should choose so mean a thing as Solita for wife. But Sir Broyance said never a word, but got him from the table and out of the hall, so that the company marvelled yet more for that he had not sought to persuade the Sieur Rudel. Then said the Princess Joceliande, and greatly was she angered both against Solita and Rudel:

"Fie, my lord! shame on you; you forget your knighthood!"

And he replied, "My knighthood, your highness, had but one use, and that to win my sweet Solita."

Wherefore was Joceliande's heart yet hotter against the twain, and she cried aloud:

"Nay, but it is on us that the shame of your cowardice will fall. Even now Sir Broyance left our hall in anger and scorn. It may not be that our chiefest noble shall so disgrace us."

But Sieur Rudel laughed lightly, and answered her:

"Madame, full oft have I jeopardised my life in your good cause, and I fear no charge of cowardice more than I fear thistle-down."

His words did but increase the fury of the princess, and she brake out in most bitter speech:

"Nay, but it is a kitchen knave we have been honouring unawares, and bidding sit with us at table!"

And straightway she called to her servants and bade them fetch the warden of the castle with the fetters. But the Sieur Rudel laughed again, and said:

"Thus it will be impossible that I leave my dear Solita and voyage perilously to Broye."

Nor any effort or resistance did he make, but lightly suffered them to fetter him, the while the princess most foully mis-said him. With fetters they prisoned his feet, and manacles they straitly fastened about his wrists, and they bound him to a pillar in the hall by a chain about his middle.

"There shall you bide," she said, "in shameful bonds until you make promise to voyage forth to Broye. For surely there is nothing so vile in all this world as a craven gentleman."

With that she turned her again to the feast, though little heart she had thereto. But the Sieur Rudel was well content; for not for all the honour in Christendom would he break his word to his dear Solita. Howbeit, the nobles were ever urgent that the princess should set him free, pleading the worshipful deeds he had accomplished in her cause. But to none of them would she hearken, and the fair gentle ladies of the Court greatly applauded her for her persistence—and especially those who had erstwhile dropped their gauntlets that Rudel might bend and pick them up. And many pleasant jests they passed upon the Sieur Rudel, bidding him dance with them, since he was loth to fight. But he paid no heed to them, nor could they provoke him by any number of taunts. Whereupon, being angered at his silence, they were fain to send to Solita and make their sport with her.

But that Joceliande would not suffer, and, rising, she went to Solita's chamber and entreated her most kindly, telling her that for love of her the Sieur Rudel would not adventure himself at Broye. Not a word did she say of how she had mistreated him, and Solita answered her jocundly for that her lord had held his pledge with her. But when the castle was still, the princess took Solita by the hand and led her down the steps to where Rudel stood against the pillar in the dark hall.

"For thy sake, sweet Solita," she said, "is he bound. For thy sake!" and she made her feel the manacles upon his hands. And when Solita had so felt his bonds, she wept, and made the greatest sorrow that ever man heard.

"Alas!" she cried, "that my dear lord should suffer in such straits. In God's mercy, madame, I pray you let him go! Loyal service hath he done for you, such as no other in the kingdom."

"Loyal service, I trow," replied the princess. "He hath brought such shame upon my Court that for ever am I dishonoured. It may not be that I let him go, without you give him back his word and bid him forth to Broye."

"And that will I never do," replied Solita, "for all your cruelty."

So the princess turned her away and gat her from the hall, but Solita remained with her lord, making moan and easing his fetters with her hands as best she might. Hence it fell out that she who should have comforted must needs be comforted herself, and that the Sieur Rudel did right willingly.

The like, he would say to me, hath often happened to him since, and when he was harassed with sore distress he must needs turn him about to stop a woman's tears; for which he thanked God most heartily, and prayed that so it might ever be, since thus he clean forgot his own sad plight. Whence, meseems, may men understand how noble a gentleman was my good lord the Sieur Rudel.

Now when the night was well spent and drawing on to dawn, Solita, for very weariness, fell asleep at the pillar's foot, and Rudel began to take counsel with himself if, by any manner of means, he might outwit the Princess Joceliande. For this he saw, that she would not have him wed her handmaiden, and for that cause, and for no cowardice of his, had so cruelly entreated him. And when he had pondered a little with himself, he bent and touched Solita with his hands, and called to her in a low voice.

"Solita," he said, "it is in Joceliande's heart to keep us twain each from other. Rise, therefore, and get thee to the good abbot who baptised thee. Ever hath he stood my friend, and for friendship's sake this thing he will do. Bring him hither into the hall, that he may marry us even this night, and when the morning comes I will tell the princess of our marriage; and so will she know that her cruelty is of small avail, and release me unto thee."

Thereupon Solita rose right joyously.

"Surely, my dear lord," said she, "no man can match thee, neither in craft nor prowess," and she hurried through the dark passages towards the lodging of the abbot. Hard by this lodging was the chapel of the castle, and when she came thereto the windows were ablaze with light, and Solita clapped her ear to the door. But no sound did she hear, no, not so much as the stirring of a mouse, and bethinking her that the good abbot might be holding silent vigil, she gently pressed upon the door, so that it opened for the space of an inch; and when she looked into the chapel, she beheld the Princess Joceliande stretched upon the steps before the altar. Her coronet had fallen from her head and rolled across the stones, and she lay like one that had fallen asleep in the counting of her beads. Greatly did Solita marvel at the sight, but no word she said lest she should wake the princess; and in a little, becoming afeard of the silence and of the shadows which the flickering candles set racing on the wall, she shut the door quickly and stole on tiptoe to the abbot. Long she entreated him or ever she prevailed, for the holy man was timorous, and feared the wrath of the princess. But at the last, for the Sieur Rudel's sake, he consented, and married them privily in the hall as the grey dawn was breaking across the sea.

Now, in the morning, the princess bid Solita be brought to her, and when they were alone, gently and cunningly she spake:

"Child," she said, "I doubt not thy heart is hot against me for that I will not enlarge the Sieur Rudel. Alas! fain were I to do this thing, but for the honour of my Court I may not. Bound are we not by our wills but by our necessities—and thus it is with all women. Men may ride forth and shape their lives with their good swords; but for us, we must needs bide where we were born, and order such things as fall to us, as best we can. Therefore, child, take my word to heart: the Sieur Rudel loves thee, and thou wouldst keep his love. Let my age point to thee the way! What if I release him? No longer can he stay with us, holding high honour and dignity, since he hath turned him from his knightlihood and avoided this great adventure, but forth with you must he fare. And all day long will he sit with you in your chamber, idle as a woman, and ever his thoughts will go back to the times of his nobility. The clash of steel will grow louder in his ears; he will list again to the praises of minstrels in the banquet-hall, and when men speak to him of great achievements wrought by other hands, then thou wilt see the life die out of his eyes, and his heart will become cold as stone, and thou wilt lose his love. A great thing will it be for thee if he come not to hate thee in the end. But if, of thy own free will, thou send him from thee, then shalt thou ever keep his love. Thy image will ride before his eyes in the van of battles; for very lack of thee he will move from endeavour to endeavour; and so thy life will be enshrined in his most noble deeds."

At these words, with such cunning gentleness were they spoken, Solita was sore troubled.

"I cannot send him from me," she cried, "for never did woman so love her lord—no, not ever in the world!"

"Then prove thy love," said Joceliande again. "A kingdom is given into his hand, and he will not take it because of thee. It is a hard thing, I trow right well. But the cross becomes a crown when a woman lifts it. Think! A kingdom! And never yet was kingdom established but the stones of its walls were mortised with the blood of women's hearts."

So she pleaded, hiding her own thoughts, until Solita answered her, and said:

"God help me, but he shall go to Broye!"

Much ado had the Princess Joceliande to hide her joy for the success of her device; but Solita, poor lass! had neither eyes nor thoughts for her. Forthwith she rose to her feet, and quickly gat her to the hall, lest her courage should fail, before that she had accomplished her resolve. But when she came near to the Sieur Rudel, blithely he smiled at her and called "Solita, my wife." It seemed to her that words so sweet had never as yet been spoken since the world began, and all her strength ebbed from her, and she stood like one that is dumb, gazing piteously at her husband. Again Rudel called to her, but no answer could she make, and she turned and fled sobbing to the chamber of the princess.

"I could not speak," she said; "my lips were locked, and Rudel holds the key."

But the princess spoke gently and craftily, bidding her take heart, for that she herself would go with her and second her words; and taking Solita by the hand, she led her again to the hall.

This time Solita made haste to speak first. "Rudel," she said, "no honour can I bring to you, but only foul disgrace, and that is no fit gift from one who loves you. Therefore, from this hour I hold you quit of your promise and pray you to undertake this mission and set forth for Broye."

But the Sieur Rudel would hearken to nothing of what she said.

"No foul disgrace can come to me," he cried, "but only if I prove false to you and lose your love. My promise I will keep, and all the more for that I see the Princess Joceliande hath set you on to this."

But Solita protested that it was not so, and that of her own will and desire she released him, for the longing to sacrifice herself for her dear lord's sake grew upon her as she thought upon it. Yet he would not consent.

"My word I passed to you when you were a maid, and shall I not keep it now that you are a wife?" he cried.

"Wife?" cried the princess, "you are his wife?" And she roughly gripped Solita's wrist so that the girl could not withhold a cry.

"In truth, madame," replied the Sieur Rudel, "even last night, in this hall, Solita and I were married by the good abbot, and therefore I will not leave her while she lives."

Still Joceliande would not believe it, bethinking her that the Sieur Rudel had hit upon the pretence as a device for his enlargement; but Solita showed to her the ring which the abbot had taken from the finger of her lord and placed upon hers, and then the princess knew that of a surety they were married, and her hatred for Solita burned in her blood like fire.

But no sign she gave of what she felt, but rather spoke with greater softness to them both, bidding them look forward beyond the first delights of love, and behold how all their years to come were the price they needs must pay.

Now, while they were yet debating each with other, came Sir Broyance into the hall, and straightway the princess called to him and begged him to add his prayers to Solita's. But he answered:

"That, madame, I will not do, for, indeed, the esteem I have for the Sieur Rudel is much increased, and I hold it no cowardice that he should refuse a kingdom for his wife's sake, but the sweetest bravery. And therefore it was that I broke off my plea last night and sought not to persuade him."

At that Rudel was greatly rejoiced, and said:

"Dost hear him, Solita? Even he who most has need of me acquits me of disgrace. Truly I will never leave thee while I live."

But the princess turned sharply to Sir Broyance. "Sir, have you changed your tune?" she said; "for never was a man so urgent as you with me for the Sieur Rudel's help."

"Alas! madame," he replied, "I knew not then that he was plighted to the maiden Solita, or never would I have borne this message. For this I surely know, that all my days are waste and barren because I suffered my mistress to send me from her after a will-of-the-wisp honour, even as Solita would send her lord."

Thereupon Solita brake in upon him:

"But, my lord, you have won great renown, and far and wide is your prowess known and sung."

"That avails me nothing," he replied, "my life rings hollow like an empty cup, and so are two lives wasted."

"Nay, my lord, neither life is wasted. For much have you done for others, though maybe little for yourself, while for her you loved the noise of your achievements must have been enough."

"Of that I cannot tell," he answered. "But this I know: she drags a pale life out behind convent walls. Often have I passed the gate with my warriors, but never could I hold speech with her."

"She will have seen your banners glancing in the sun," said Solita, "and so will she know her sacrifice was good." Thereupon she turned her again to her husband. "For my sake, dear Rudel, I pray you go to Broye."

But still he persisted, saying he would not depart from her till death, until at last she ceased from her importunities, and went sadly to her chamber. Then she unbound her hair and stood gazing at her likeness in the mirror.

"O cursed beauty," she cried, "wherein I took vain pride for my sweet lord's sake—truly art thou my ruin and snare!" And while she thus made moan, the princess came softly into her chamber.

"He will not leave me, madame," she sobbed. Joceliande came over to her and gently laid her hand upon her head and whispered in her ear, "Not while you live!"

For awhile Solita sat silent.

"Ay, madame," she said at length, "even as I came alone to these coasts, so will I go from them;" and slowly she drew from its sheath a little knife which she carried at her girdle. She tried the point upon her finger, so that the blood sprang from the prick and dropped on her white gown. At the sight she gave a cry and dropped the knife, and "I cannot do it" she said, "I have not the courage. But you, madame! Ever have you been kind to me, and therefore show me this last kindness."

"I will well," said the princess; and she made Solita to sit upon a couch, and with two bands of her golden hair she tied her hands fast behind her, and so laid her upon her back on the couch. And when she had so laid her she said:

"But for all that you die, he shall not go to Broye, but here shall he bide, and share my throne with me."

Thereupon did Solita perceive all the treachery of Princess Joceliande, and vainly she struggled to free her hands and to cry out for help. But Joceliande clapped her palm upon Solita's mouth, and drawing a gold pin from her own hair, she drove it straight into her heart, until nothing but the little knob could be seen. So Solita died, and quickly the princess wiped the blood from her breast, and unbound her hands and arranged her limbs as though she slept. Then she returned to the hall, and, summoning the warden, bade him loose the Sieur Rudel.

"It shall be even as you wish," she said to him. Wise and prudent had she been, had she ended with that; but her malice was not yet sated, and so she suffered it to lead her to her ruin. For she stretched out her hand to him and said, "I myself will take you to your wife." And greatly marvelling, the Sieur Rudel took her hand and followed.

Now when they were come to Solita's chamber, the princess entered first, and turned her again to my Lord Rudel and laid her finger to her lips, saying, "Hush!" Therefore he came in after her on tiptoe and stood a little way from the foot of the couch, fearing lest he might wake his wife.

"Is she not still?" asked Joceliande in a whisper. "Is she not still and white?"

"Still and white as a folded lily," he replied, "and like a folded lily, too, in her white flesh there sleeps a heart of gold." Therewith he crept softly to the couch and bent above her, and in an instant he perceived that her bosom did not rise and fall. He gazed swiftly at the princess; she was watching him, and their glances met. He dropped upon his knees by the couch and felt about Solita's heart that he might know whether it beat or not, and his fingers touched the knob of Joceliande's bodkin. Gently he drew the gown from Solita's bosom, and beheld how that she had been slain. Then did he weep, believing that in truth she had killed herself, but the princess must needs touch him upon the shoulder.

"My lord," she said, "why weep for the handmaid when the princess lives?"

Then the Sieur Rudel rose straightway to his feet and said:

"This is thy doing!" For a little Joceliande denied it, saying that of her own will and desire Solita had perished. But Rudel looked her ever sternly in the face, and again he said, "This is thy doing!" and at that Joceliande could gainsay him no more. But she dropped upon the floor, and kissed his feet, and cried:

"It was for love of thee, Rudel. Look, my kingdom is large and of much wealth, yet of no worth is it to me, but only if it bring thee service and great honour. A princess am I, yet no joy do I have of my degree, but only if thou share my siege with me."

Then Rudel broke out upon her, thrusting her from him with his hand and spurning her with his foot as she crouched upon the floor.

"No princess art thou, but a changeling. For surely princess never did such foul wrong and crime;" and even as he spake, many of the nobles burst into the chamber, for they had heard the outcry below and marvelled what it might mean. And when Rudel beheld them crowding the doorway, "Come in, my lords," said he, "so that ye may know what manner of woman ye serve and worship. There lies my dear wife, Solita, murdered by this vile princess, and for love of me she saith, for love of me!" And again he turned him to Joceliande. "Now all the reverence I held thee in is turned to hatred, God be thanked; such is the guerdon of thy love for me."

Joceliande, when she heard his injuries, knew indeed that her love was unavailing, and that by no means might she win him to share her siege with her. Therefore her love changed to a bitter fury, and standing up forthwith she bade the nobles take their swords and smite off the Sieur Rudel's head. But no one so much as moved a hand towards his hilt. Then spake Rudel again:

"O vile and treacherous," he cried, "who will obey thee?" and his eyes fell upon Solita where she lay in her white beauty upon the golden pillow of her hair. Thereupon he dropped again upon his knees by the couch, and took her within his arms, kissing her lips and her eyes, and bidding her wake; this with many tears. But seeing she would not, but was dead in very truth, he got him to his feet and turned to where the princess stood like stone in the middle of the chamber. "Now for thy sin," he cried, "a shameful death shalt thou die and a painful, and may the devil have thy soul!"

He bade the nobles depart from the chamber, and following them the last, firmly barred the door upon the outside. Thus was the Princess Joceliande left alone with dead Solita, and ever she heard the closing and barring of doors and the sound of feet growing fainter and fainter. But no one came to her, loud though she cried, and sorely was she afeard, gazing now at the dead body, now wondering what manner of death the Sieur Rudel planned for her. Then she walked to the window if by any chance she might win help that way, and saw the ships riding at their anchorage with sails loose, and heard the songs of the sailors as they made ready to cast free; and between the coast and the castle were many men hurrying backwards and forwards with all the purveyance of a voyage. Then did she think that she was to be left alone in the tower, to starve to death in company of the girl she had murdered, and great moan she made; but other device was in the mind of my ingenious master Lord Rudel. For all about the castle he piled stacks of wood and drenched them with oil, bethinking him that Solita his wife, if little joy she had had of her life, should have undeniable honour in her obsequies. And so having set fire to the stacks, he got him into the ships with all the company that had dwelled within the castle, and drew out a little way from shore. Then the ships lay to and watched the flames mounting the castle walls. The tower wherein the Princess Joceliande was prisoned was the topmost turret of the building, so that many a roof crashed in, and many a rampart bowed out and crumbled to the ground, or ever the fire touched it. But just as night was drawing on, lo! a great tongue of flame burst through the window from within, and the Sieur Rudel beheld in the midst of it as it were the figure of a woman dancing.

Thereupon he signed to his sailors to hoist the sail again, and the other ships obeying his example, he led the way gallantly to Broye.



A LIBERAL EDUCATION.

"So you couldn't wait!"

Mrs. Branscome turned full on the speaker as she answered deliberately: "You have evidently not been long in London, Mr. Hilton, or you would not ask that question."

"I arrived yesterday evening."

"Quite so. Then will you forgive me one tiny word of advice? You will learn the truth of it soon by yourself; but I want to convince you at once of the uselessness—to use no harder word—of trying to revive a flirtation—let me see! yes, quite two years old. You might as well galvanise a mummy and expect it to walk about. Besides," she added inconsistently, "I had to marry and—and—you never came."

"Then you sent the locket!"

The word sent a shiver through Mrs. Branscome with a remembrance of the desecration of a gift which she had cherished as a holy thing. She clung to flippancy as her defence.

"Oh, no! I never sent it. I lost it somewhere, I think. Must you go?" she continued, as Hilton moved silently to the door. "I expect my husband in just now. Won't you wait and meet him?"

"How dare you?" Hilton burst out. "Is there nothing of your true self left?"

* * * * * David Hilton's education was as yet in its infancy. This was not only his first visit to England, but, indeed, to any spot further afield than Interlaken. All of his six-and-twenty years that he could recollect had been passed in a chalet on the Scheidegg above Grindelwald, his only companion an elderly recluse who had deliberately cut himself off from communion with his fellows. The trouble which had driven Mr. Strange, an author at one time of some mark, into this seclusion, was now as completely forgotten as his name. Even David knew nothing of its cause. That Strange was his uncle and had adopted him when left an orphan at the age of six, was the sum of his information. For although the pair had lived together for twenty years, there had been little intercourse of thought between them, and none of sentiment. Strange had, indeed, throughout shut his nephew, not merely from his heart, but also from his confidence, at first out of sheer neglect, and afterwards, as the lad grew towards manhood, from deliberate intent. For, by continually brooding over his embittered life, he had at last impregnated his weak nature with the savage cynicism which embraced even his one comrade; and the child he had originally chosen as a solace for his loneliness, became in the end the victim of a heartless experiment. Strange's plan was based upon a method of training. In the first place, he thoroughly isolated David from any actual experience of persons beyond the simple shepherd folk who attended to their needs and a few Alpine guides who accompanied him on mountain expeditions. He kept incessant guard over his own past life, letting no incidents or deductions escape, and fed the youth's mind solely upon the ideal polities of the ancients, his object being to launch him suddenly upon the world with little knowledge of it beyond what had filtered through his books, and possessed of an intuitive hostility to existing modes. What kind of a career would ensue? Strange anticipated the solution of the problem with an approach to excitement. Two events, however, prevented the complete realisation of his scheme. One was a lingering illness which struck him down when David was twenty-four and about to enter on his ordeal. The second, occurring simultaneously, was the advent of Mrs. Branscome—then Kate Alden—to Grindelwald.

They met by chance on the snow slopes of the Wetterhorn early one August morning. Miss Alden was trying to disentangle some meaning from the patois of her guides, and gratefully accepted Hilton's assistance. Half-an-hour after she had continued the ascent, David noticed a small gold locket glistening in her steps. It recalled him to himself, and he picked it up and went home with a strange trouble clutching at his heart. The next morning he carried the locket down into the valley, found its owner and—forgot to restore it. It became an excuse for further descents. Meanwhile, the theories were wooed with a certain coldness. In front of them stood perpetually the one real thing which had surged up through the quiet of his life, and, lover-like, he justified its presence to himself, by seeing in Kate Alden's frank face the incarnation of the ideal patterns of his books. The visits to Grindelwald grew more frequent and more prolonged. The climax, however, came unexpectedly to both. David had commissioned a jeweller at Berne to fashion a fac-simile of the locket for his own wearing, and, meaning to restore the original, handed Kate Alden the copy the evening before she left. An explanation of the mistake led to mutual avowals and a betrothal. Hilton returned to nurse his adoptive father, and was to seek England as soon as he could obtain his release. Meanwhile, Kate pledged herself to wait for him. She kept the new locket, empty except for a sprig of edelweiss he had placed in it, and agreed that if she needed her lover's presence, she should despatch it as an imperative summons.

During the next two years Strange's life ebbed sullenly away. The approach of death brought no closer intimacy between uncle and nephew, since indeed the former held it almost as a grievance against David that he should die before he could witness the issue of his experiment. Consequently the younger man kept his secret to himself, and embraced it the more closely for his secrecy, fostering it through the dreary night watches, until the image of Kate Alden became a Star-in-the-East to him, beckoning towards London. When the end came, David found himself the possessor of a moderate fortune; and with the humiliating knowledge that this legacy awoke his first feeling of gratitude towards his uncle, he locked the door of the chalet, and so landed at Charing Cross one wet November evening. Meanwhile the locket had never come.

* * * * *

After Hilton had left, Mrs. Branscome's forced indifference gave way. As she crouched beside the fire, numbed by pain beyond the power of thought, she could conjure up but one memory—the morning of their first meeting. She recollected that the sun had just risen over the shoulder of the Shreckhorn, and how it had seemed to her young fancy that David had come to her straight from the heart of it. The sound of her husband's step in the hall brought her with a shock to facts. "He must go back," she muttered, "he must go back."

David, however, harboured no such design. One phrase of hers had struck root in his thoughts. "I had to marry," she had said, and certain failings in her voice warned him that this, whatever it meant, was in her eyes the truth. It had given the lie direct to the flippancy which she had assumed, and David determined to remain until he had fathomed its innermost meaning. A fear, indeed, lest the one single faith he felt as real should crumble to ashes made his resolve almost an instinct of self-preservation. The idea of accepting the situation never occurred to him, his training having effectually prevented any growth of respect for the status quo as such. Nor did he realise at this time that his determination might perhaps prove unfair to Mrs. Branscome. A certain habit of abstraction, nurtured in him by the spirit of inquiry which he had imbibed from his books, had become so intuitive as to penetrate even into his passion. From the first he had been accustomed to watch his increasing intimacy with Kate Alden from the standpoint of a third person, analysing her actions and feelings no less than his own. And now this tendency gave the crowning impetus to a resolve which sprang originally from his necessity to find sure foothold somewhere amid the wreckage of his hopes.

From this period might be dated the real commencement of Hilton's education. He returned to the Branscomes' house, sedulously schooled his looks and his words, save when betrayed into an occasional denunciation of the marriage laws, and succeeded at last in overcoming a distaste which Mr. Branscome unaccountably evinced for him. To a certain extent, also, he was taken up by social entertainers. There was an element of romance in the life he had led which appealed favourably to the seekers after novelty—"a second St. Simeon Skylights" he had been rashly termed by one good lady, whose wealth outweighed her learning. At first his gathering crowd of acquaintances only served to fence him more closely within himself; but as he began to realise that this was only the unit of another crowd, a crowd of designs and intentions working darkly, even he, sustained by the strength of a single aim, felt himself whirling at times. Thus he slowly grew to some knowledge of the difficulties and complications which must beset any young girl like Kate Alden, whose nearest relation and chaperon had been a feather-headed cousin not so many years her elder. At last, in a dim way, he began to see the possibility of replacing his bitterness with pity. For Mrs. Branscome did not love her husband; he plainly perceived that, if only from the formal precision with which she performed her duties. She appeared to him, indeed, to be paying off an obligation rather than working out the intention of her life.

The actual solution of his perplexities came by an accident. Amongst the visitors who fell under Hilton's observation at the Branscomes' was a certain Mr. Marston, a complacent widower of some five-and-thirty years, and Branscome's fellow servant at the Admiralty. Hilton's attention was attracted to this man by the air of embarrassment with which Mrs. Branscome received his approaches. Resolute to neglect no clue, however slight, David sought Marston's companionship, and, as a reward, discovered one afternoon in a Crown Derby teacup on the mantel-shelf of the latter's room his own present of two years back. The exclamation which this discovery extorted aroused Marston.

"What's up?"

"Where did you get this?"

"Why? Have you seen it before?"

The question pointed out to David the need of wariness.

"No!" he answered. "Its shape rather struck me, that's all. The emblem of a conquest, I suppose?"

The invitation stumbled awkwardly from unaccustomed lips, but Marston noticed no more than the words. He was chewing the cud of a disappointment and answered with a short laugh:

"No! Rather of a rebuff. The lady tore her hand away in a hurry—the link on the bracelet was thin, I suppose. Anyway, that was left in my hand."

"You were proposing to her?"

"Well, hardly. I was married at the time."

There was a silence for some moments, during which Hilton slowly gathered into his mind a consciousness of the humiliation which Kate must have endured, and read in that the explanation of her words "I had to marry." Marston took up the tale, babbling resentfully of a nursery prudishness, but his remarks fell on deaf ears until he mentioned a withered flower, which he had found inside the locket. Then David's self control partially gave way. In imagination he saw Marston carelessly tossing the sprig aside and the touch of his fingers seemed to sully the love of which it was the token. The locket burned into his hand. Without a word he dropped it on to the floor, and ground it to pieces with his heel. A new light broke in upon Marston.

"So this accounts for all your railing against the marriage laws," he laughed. "By Jove, you have kept things quiet. I wouldn't have given you credit for it."

His eyes travelled from the carpet to David's face, and he stopped abruptly.

"You had better hold your tongue," David said quietly. "Pick up the pieces."

"Do you think I would touch them now?"

Marston rose from his lounge; David stepped in front of the door. There was a litheness in his movements which denoted obedient muscles. Marston perceived this now with considerable discomfort, and thought it best to comply: he knelt down and picked up the fragments of the locket.

"Now throw them into the grate!"

That done, David took his leave. Once outside the house, however, his emotion fairly mastered him. The episode of which he had just heard was so mean and petty in itself, and yet so far-reaching in its consequences that it set his senses aflame in an increased revolt against the order of the world. Marriage was practically a necessity to a girl as unprotected as Kate Alden; he now acquiesced in that. But that it should have been forced upon her by the vanity of a trivial person like Marston, engaged in the pursuit of his desires, sent a fever of repulsion through his veins. He turned back to the door deluded by the notion that it was his duty to render the occurrence impossible of repetition. He was checked, however, by the thought of Mrs. Branscome. The shame he felt hinted the full force of degradation of which she must have been conscious, and begot in him a strange feeling of loyalty. Up till now the true meaning of chivalry had been unknown to him. In consequence of his bringing up he had been incapable of regarding faith in persons as a working motive in one's life. Even the first dawn of his passion had failed to teach him that; all the confidence and trust which he gained thereby being a mere reflection, from what he saw in Kate Alden, of truth to him. It was necessary that he should feel her trouble first and his poignant sense of that now revealed to him, not merely the wantonness of the perils women are compelled to run, but their consequent sufferings and their endurance in suppressing them.

A feverish impulse towards self-sacrifice sprang up within him. He would bury the incident of that afternoon as a dead thing—nay, more, for Mrs. Branscome's sake he would leave England and return to his retreat among the mountains. If she had suffered, why should he claim an exemption? The idea had just sufficient strength to impel him to catch the night-mail from Charing Cross. That it was already weakening was evidenced by a half-feeling of regret that he had not missed the train.

The regret swelled during his journey to the coast. The scene he had just come through became, from much pondering on it, almost unreal, and, with the blurring of the impression it had caused, there rose a doubt as to the accuracy of his vision of Mrs. Branscome's distress, which he had conjured out of it. His chivalry, in a word, had grown too quickly to take firm root. It was an exotic planted in soil not yet fully prepared. David began to think himself a fool, and at last, as the train neared Dover, a question which had been vaguely throbbing in his brain suddenly took shape. Why had she not sent for him? True, the locket was lost, but she might have written. The formulation of the question shattered almost all the work of the last few hours. He cursed his recent thoughts as a child's fairy dreams. Why should he leave England after all? If he was to sacrifice himself it should be for some one who cared sufficiently for him to justify the act.

There might, of course, have been some hidden obstacle in the way, which Mrs. Branscome could not surmount. The revelation of Marston's unimagined story warned him of the possibility of that. But the chances were against it. Anyway, he quibbled to himself, he had a clear right to pursue the matter until he unearthed the truth. Acting upon this decision, David returned to town, though not without a lurking sense of shame.

A few evenings after, he sought out Mrs. Branscome at a dance. The blood rushed to her face when she caught his figure, and as quickly ebbed away.

"So you have not gone, after all?" There was something pitiful in her tone of reproach.

"No. What made you think I had?"

"Mr. Marston told me!"

"Did he tell you why?"

"I guessed that, and I thanked you in my heart."

David was disconcerted; the woman he saw corresponded so ill with what he was schooling himself to believe her. He sought to conceal his confusion, as she had once done, and played a part. Like her, he overplayed it.

"Well! I came to see London life, you know. It makes a pretty comedy."

"Comedies end in tears at times."

"Even then common politeness makes us sit them out. Can you spare me a dance?"

Mrs. Branscome pleaded fatigue, and barely suppressed a sigh of relief as she noted her husband's approach. David followed her glance, and bent over her, speaking hurriedly:—

"You said you knew why I went away; I want to tell you why I came back."

"No! no!" she exclaimed. "It could be of no use—of no help to either of us."

"I came back," he went on, ignoring her interruption, "merely to ask you one question. Will you hear it and answer it? I can wait," he added, as she kept silence.

"Then, to-morrow, as soon as possible," Mrs. Branscome replied, beaten by his persistency. "Come at seven; we dine at eight, so I can give you half-an-hour. But you are ungenerous."

That night began what may be termed the crisis of Hilton's education. This was the second time he had caught Mrs. Branscome unawares. On the first occasion—that of his unexpected arrival in England—he did not possess the experience to measure accurately looks and movements, or to comprehend them as the connotation of words. It is doubtful, besides, whether, had he owned the skill, he would have had the power to exercise it, so engrossed was he in his own distress. By the process, however, of continually repressing the visible signs of his own emotions, he had now learnt to appreciate them in others. And in Mrs. Branscome's sudden change of colour, in little convulsive movements of her hands, and in a certain droop of eyelids veiling eyes which met the gaze frankly as a rule, he read this evening sure proofs of the constancy of her heart. This fresh knowledge affected him in two ways. On the one hand it gave breath to the selfish passion which now dominated his ideas. At the same time, however it assured him that when he asked his question: "Why did you not send for me?" an unassailable answer would be forthcoming; and, moreover, by convincing him of this, it destroyed the sole excuse he had pleaded to himself for claiming the right to ask it. In self-defence Hilton had recourse to his old outcry against the marriage laws and, finding this barren, came in the end to frankly devising schemes for their circumvention. Such inward personal conflicts were, of necessity, strange to a man dry-nursed on abstractions, and, after a night of tension, they tossed him up on the shores of the morning broken in mind and irresolute for good or ill.

* * * * *

Mrs. Branscome received him impassively at the appointed time. David saw that he was expected to speak to the point, and a growing scorn for his own insistence urged him to the same course. He plunged abruptly into his subject and his manner showed him in the rough, more particularly to himself.

"What I came back to ask you is just this. You know—you must know—that I would have come, whatever the consequence. Why did you not send for me after, after—?"

"Why did I not send for you?" Mrs. Branscome took him up, repeating his words mechanically, as though their meaning had not reached her. "You don't mean that you never received my letter. Oh, don't say that! It can't have miscarried, I registered it."

"Then you did write?"

This confirmation of her fear drove a breach through her composure.

"Of course, of course, I wrote," she cried. "You doubt that? What can you think of me? Yes, I wrote, and when no answer came, I fancied you had forgotten me—that you had never really cared, and so I—I married."

Her voice dried in her throat. The thought of this ruin of two lives, made inevitable by a mistake in which neither shared, brought a sense of futility which paralysed her.

The same idea was working in Hilton's mind, but to a different end. It fixed the true nature of this woman for the first time clearly within his recognition, and the new light blinded him. Before, his imagined grievance had always coloured the picture; now, he began to realise not only that she was no more responsible for the catastrophe than himself, but that he must have stood in the same light to her as she had done to him. The events of the past few months passed before his mind as on a clear mirror. He compared the gentle distinction of her bearing with his own flaunting resentment.

"I am sorry," he said, "I have wronged you in thought and word and action. The fact is, I never saw you plainly before; myself stood in the way."

Mrs. Branscome barely heeded his words. The feelings her watchfulness had hitherto restrained having once broken their barriers swept her away on a full flow. She recalled the very terms of her letter. She had written it in the room in which they were standing. Mr. Branscome had called just as she addressed the envelope—she had questioned him about its registration to Switzerland, and, yes, he had promised to look after it and had taken it away. "Yes!" she repeated to herself aloud, directing her eyes instinctively towards her husband's study door. "He promised to post it."

The sound of the words and a sudden movement from Hilton woke her to alarm. David had turned to the window, and she felt that he had heard and understood. The silence pressed on her like a dead weight. For Hilton, this was the crucial moment of his ordeal. He had understood only too clearly, and this second proof of the harm a petty sin could radiate struck through him the same fiery repulsion which had stung him to revolt when he quitted Marston's rooms. He flung up the window and faced the sunset. Strips of black cloud barred it across, and he noticed, with a minute attention of which he was hardly conscious, that their lower edges took a colour like the afterglow on a Swiss rock mountain. The perception sent a riot of associations through his brain which strengthened his wavering purpose. Must he lose her after all, he thought; now that he had risen to a true estimation of her worth? His fancy throned Kate queen of his mountain home, and he turned towards her, but a light of fear in her eyes stopped the words on his lips.

"I trust you," she said, simply.

The storm of his passions quieted down. That one sentence just expressed to him the debt he owed to her. In return—well, he could do no less than leave her her illusion.

"Good-bye," he said. "All the good that comes to us, somehow, seems to spring from women like yourself, while we give you nothing but trouble in return. Even this last misery, which my selfishness has brought to you, lifts me to breathe a cleaner air."

"He must have forgotten to post it," Mrs. Branscome pleaded.

"Yes; we must believe that. Good-bye!"

For a moment he stayed to watch her white figure, outlined against the dusk of the room, and then gently closed the door on her. The next morning David left England, not, however, for Grindelwald. He dreaded the morbid selfishness which grows from isolation, and sought a finishing school in the companionship of practical men.



THE TWENTY-KRONER STORY.

The surgeon has a weakness for men who make their living on the sea. From the skipper of a Dogger Bank fishing-smack to the stoker of a Cardiff tramp, from Margate 'longshoreman to a crabber of the Stilly Isles, he embraces them all in a lusty affection. And this not merely out of his own love of salt water but because his diagnosis reveals the gentleman in them more surely than in the general run of his wealthier patients. "A primitive gentleman, if you like," Lincott will say, "not above tearing his meat with his fingers or wearing the same shirt night and day for a couple of months on end, but still a gentleman." As one of the innumerable instances which had built up his conviction, Lincott will offer you the twenty-kroner story.

As he was walking through the wards of his hospital he stopped for a moment by the bed of a brewer's drayman who was suffering from an access of delirium tremens. The drayman's language was violent and voluble. But he sank into a coma with the usual suddenness common to such cases, and in the pause which followed Lincott heard a gentle voice a few beds away earnestly apologising to a nurse for the trouble she was put to. "Why," she replied with a laugh, "I am here to be troubled." Apologies of the kind are not so frequently heard in the wards of an East End hospital. This one, besides, was spoken with an accent not very pronounced, it is true, but unfamiliar. Lincott moved down to the bed. It was occupied by a man apparently tall, with a pair of remorseful blue eyes set in an open face, and a thatch of yellow hair dusted with grey.

"What's the matter?" asked Lincott, and the patient explained. He was a Norseman from Finland, fifty-three years old, and he had worked all his life on English ships. He had risen from "decky" to mate. Then he had injured himself, and since he could work no more he had come into the hospital to be cured. Lincott examined him, found that a slight operation was all the man needed, and performed it himself. In six weeks time Helling, as the sailor was named, was discharged. He made a simple and dignified little speech of thanks to the nurses for their attention, and another to the surgeon for saving his life.

"Nonsense!" said Lincott, as he held out his hand. "Any medical student could have performed that operation."

"Then I have another reason to thank you," answered Helling. "The nurses have told me about you, sir, and I'm grateful you spared the time to perform it yourself."

"What are you going to do?" asked Lincott.

"Find a ship, sir," answered Helling. Then he hesitated, and slowly slipped his finger and thumb along the waist-band of his trousers. But he only repeated, "I must find a ship," and so left the hospital.

Three weeks later Helling called at Lincott's house in Harley Street. Now, when hospital patients take the trouble, after they have been discharged, to find out the doctor's private address and call, it generally means they have come to beg. Lincott, remembering how Helling's simple courtesies had impressed him, experienced an actual disappointment. He felt his theories about the seafaring man begin to totter. However, Helling was shown into the consulting-room, and at the sight of him Lincott's disappointment vanished. He did not start up, since manifestations of surprise are amongst those things with which doctors find it advisable to dispense, but he hooked a chair forward with his foot.

"Now then, sit down! Chuck yourself about! Sit down," said Lincott genially. "You look bad."

Helling, in fact, was gaunt with famine; his eyes were sunk and dull; he was so thin that he seemed to have grown in height.

"I had some trouble in finding a ship," he said; and sitting down on the edge of the chair, twirled his hat in some embarrassment.

"It is three weeks since you left the hospital?"

"Yes."

"You should have come here before," the surgeon was moved to say.

"No," answered Helling. "I couldn't come before, sir. You see, I had no ship. But I found one this morning, and I start to-morrow."

"But for these three weeks? You have been starving." Lincott slipped his hand into his pocket. It seemed to him afterwards simply providential that he did not fumble his money, that no clink of coins was heard. For Helling answered,

"Yes, sir, I've been starving." He drew back his shoulders and laughed. "I'm proud to know that I've been starving."

He laid his hat on the ground, drew out and unclasped his knife, felt along the waist-band of his breeches, cut a few stitches, and finally produced a little gold coin. This coin he held between his forefinger and thumb.

"Forty years ago," he said, "when I was a nipper and starting on my first voyage, my mother gave me this. She sewed it up in the waist-band of my breeches with her own hands and told me never to part with it until I'd been starving. I've been near to starvation often and often enough. But I never have starved before. This coin has always stood between that and me. Now, however, I have actually been starving and I can part with it."

He got up from his chair and timidly laid the piece of gold on the table by Lincott's elbow. Then he picked up his hat. The surgeon said nothing, and he did not touch the coin. Neither did he look at Helling, but sat with his forehead propped in his hand as though he were reading the letters on his desk. Helling, afraid to speak lest his coin should be refused, walked noiselessly to the door and noiselessly unlatched it.

"Wait a bit!" said Lincott. Helling stopped anxiously in the doorway.

"Where have you slept"—Lincott paused to steady his voice—"for the last three weeks?" he continued.

"Under arches by the river, sir," replied Helling. "On benches along the Embankment, once or twice in the parks. But that's all over now," he said earnestly. "I'm all right. I've got my ship. I couldn't part with that before, because it was the only thing I had to hang on to the world with. But I'm all right now."

Lincott took up the coin and turned it over in the palm of his hand.

"Twenty kroners," he said. "Do you know what that's worth in England?"

"Yes, I do," answered Helling with some trepidation.

"Fifteen shillings," said Lincott. "Think of it, fifteen shillings, perhaps sixteen."

"I know," interrupted Helling quickly, mistaking the surgeon's meaning. "But please, please, you mustn't think I value what you have done for me at that. It's only fifteen shillings, but it has meant a fortune to me all the last three weeks. Each time that I've drawn my belt tighter I have felt that coin underneath it burn against my skin. When I passed a coffee-stall in the early morning and saw the steam and the cake I knew I could have bought up the whole stall if I chose. I could have had meals, and meals, and meals. I could have slept in beds under roofs. It's only fifteen shillings; nothing at all to you," and he looked round the consulting-room, with its pictures and electric lights, "but I want you to take it at what it has been worth to me ever since I came out of the hospital."

Lincott took Helling into his dining-room. On a pedestal stood a great silver vase, blazing its magnificence across the room.

"You see that?" he asked.

"Yes," said Helling.

"It was given to me by a patient. It must have cost at the least L500."

Helling tapped the vase with his knuckles.

"Yes, sir, that's a present," he said enviously. "That is a present."

Lincott laughed and threw up the window.

"You can pitch it out into the street if you like. By the side of your coin it's muck."

Lincott keeps the coin. He points out that Helling was fifty-three at the time that he gave him this present, and that the operation was one which any practitioner could have performed.



THE FIFTH PICTURE.

Lady Tamworth felt unutterably bored. The sensation of lassitude, even in its less acute degrees, was rare with her; for she possessed a nature of so fresh a buoyancy that she was able, as a rule, to extract diversion from any environment. Her mind took impressions with the vivid clearness of a mirror, and also, it should be owned, with a mirror's transient objectivity. To-day, however, the mirror was clouded. She looked out of the window; a level row of grey houses frowned at her across the street. She looked upwards; a grey pall of cloud swung over the rooftops. The interior of the room appeared to her even less inviting than the street. It was the afternoon of the first drawing-room, and a debutante was exhibiting herself to her friends. She stood in the centre, a figure from a Twelfth-Night cake, amidst a babble of congratulations, and was plainly occupied in a perpetual struggle to conceal her moments of enthusiasm beneath a crust of deprecatory languor.

The spectacle would have afforded choice entertainment to Lady Tamworth, had she viewed it in the company of a sympathetic companion. Solitary appreciation of the humorous, however, only induced in her a yet more despondent mood. The tea seemed tepid; the conversation matched the tea. Epigrams without point, sallies void of wit, and cynicisms innocent of the sting of an apt application floated about her on a ripple of unintelligent laughter. A phrase of Mr. Dale's recurred to her mind, "Hock and seltzer with the sparkle out of it;" so he had stigmatised the style and she sadly thanked him for the metaphor.

There was, moreover, a particular reason for her discontent. Nobody realised the presence of Lady Tamworth, and this unaccustomed neglect shot a barbed question at her breast. "After all why should they?" She was useless, she reflected; she did nothing, exercised no influence. The thought, however, was too painful for lengthened endurance; the very humiliation of it produced the antidote. She remembered that she had at last persuaded her lazy Sir John to stand for Parliament. Only wait until he was elected! She would exercise an influence then. The vision of a salon was miraged before her, with herself in the middle deftly manipulating the destinies of a nation.

"Lady Tamworth!" a voice sounded at her elbow.

"Mr. Dale!" She turned with a sudden sprightliness. "My guardian angel sent you."

"So bad as that?"

"I have an intuition." She paused impressively upon the word.

"Never mind!" said he soothingly. "It will go away."

Lady Tamworth glared, that is, as well as she could; nature had not really adapted her for glaring. "I have an intuition," she resumed, "that this is what the suburbs mean." And she waved her hand comprehensively.

"They are perhaps a trifle excessive," he returned. "But then you needn't have come."

"Oh, yes! Clients of Sir John." Lady Tamworth sighed and sank with a weary elegance into a chair. Mr. Dale interpreted the sigh. "Ah! A wife's duties," he began.

"No man can know," she interrupted, and she spread out her hands in pathetic forgiveness of an over-exacting world. Her companion laughed brutally. "You are rude!" she said and laughed too. And then, "Tell me something new!"

"I met an admirer of yours to-day."

"But that's nothing new." She looked up at him with a plaintive reproach.

"I will begin again," he replied submissively. "I walked down the Mile-End road this morning to Sir John's jute-factory."

"You fail to interest me," she said with some emphasis.

"I am so sorry. Good-bye!"

"Mr. Dale!"

"Yes!"

"You may, if you like, go on with the first story."

"There is only one. It was in the Mile-End road I met the admirer—Julian Fairholm."

"Oh!" Lady Tamworth sat up and blushed. However, Lady Tamworth blushed very readily.

"It was a queer incident," Mr. Dale continued. "I caught sight of a necktie in a little dusty shop-window near the Pavilion Theatre. I had never seen anything like it in my life; it fairly fascinated me, seemed to dare me to buy it."

The lady's foot began to tap upon the carpet. Mr. Dale stopped and leaned critically forward.

"Well! Why don't you go on?" she asked impatiently.

"It's pretty," he reflected aloud.

The foot disappeared demurely into the seclusion of petticoats. "You exasperate me," she remarked. But her face hardly guaranteed her words. "We were speaking of ties."

"Ah, the tie wasn't pretty. It was of satin, bright yellow with blue spots. And an idea struck me; yes, an idea! Sir John's election colours are yellow, his opponent's blue. So I thought the tie would make a tactful present, symbolical (do you see?) of the state of the parties in the constituency."

He paused a second time.

"Well?"

"I went in and bought it."

"Well?"

"Julian Fairholm sold it to me."

Lady Tamworth stared at the speaker in pure perplexity. Then all at once she understood and the blood eddied into her cheeks. "I don't believe it!" she exclaimed.

"His face would be difficult to mistake," Mr. Dale objected. "Besides I had time to assure myself, for I had to wait my turn. When I entered the shop, he was serving a woman with baby-linen. Oh yes! Julian Fairholm sold me the tie."

Lady Tamworth kept her eyes upon the ground. Then she looked up. She struck the arm of her chair with her closed fist and cried in a quick petulance, "How dare he?"

"Exactly what I thought," answered her companion smoothly. "The colours were crude by themselves, the combination was detestable. And he an artist too!" Mr. Dale laughed pleasantly.

"Did he speak to you?"

"He asked me whether I would take a packet of pins instead of a farthing."

"Ah, don't," she entreated, and rose from her chair. It might have been her own degradation of which Mr. Dale was speaking.

"By the way," he added, "I was so taken aback that I forgot to present the tie. Would you?"

"No! No!" she said decisively and turned away. But a sudden notion checked her. "On second thoughts I will; but I can't promise to make him wear it."

The smile which sped the words flickered strangely upon quivering lips and her eyes shone with anger. However the tie changed hands, and Lady Tamworth tripped down stairs and stepped into her brougham. The packet lay upon her lap and she unfolded it. A round ticket was enclosed, and the bill. On the ticket was printed, A Present from Zedediah Moss. With a convulsion of disgust she swept the parcel on to the floor. "How dare he?" she cried again, and her thoughts flew back to the brief period of their engagement. She had been just Kitty Arlton in those days, the daughter of a poor sea-captain but dowered with the compensating grace of personal attractions. Providence had indisputably designed her for the establishment of the family fortunes; such at all events was the family creed, and the girl herself felt no inclination to doubt a faith which was backed by the evidence of her looking-glass. Julian Fairholm at that time shared a studio with her brother, and the acquaintance thus begun ripened into an attachment and ended in a betrothal. For Julian, in the common prediction, possessed that vague blessing, a future. It is true the common prediction was always protected by a saving clause: "If he could struggle free from his mysticism." But none the less his pictures were beginning to sell, and the family displayed a moderate content. The discomposing appearance of Sir John Tamworth, however, gave a different complexion to the matter. Sir John was rich, and had besides the confident pertinacity of success. In a word, Kitty Arlton married Sir John.

Lady Tamworth's recollections of the episode were characteristically vague; they came back to her in pieces like disconnected sections of a wooden puzzle. She remembered that she had written an exquisitely pathetic letter to Fairholm "when the end came," as she expressed it; and she recalled queer scraps of the artist's talk about the danger of forming ties. "New ties," he would say, "mean new duties, and they hamper and clog the will." Ah yes, the will; he was always holding forth about that and here was the lecture finally exemplified! He was selling baby-linen in the Mile-End road. She had borne her disappointment, she reflected, without any talk about will. The thought of her self-sacrifice even now brought the tears to her eyes; she saw herself wearing her orange-blossoms in the spirit of an Iphigeneia.

Sections of the puzzle, however, were missing to Lady Tamworth's perceptions. For, in fact, her sense of sacrifice had been mainly artificial, and fostered by a vanity which made the possession of a broken romance seem to pose her on a notable pedestal of duty. What had really attracted her to Julian was the evidence of her power shown in the subjugation of a being intellectually higher than his compeers. It was not so much the man she had cared for, as the sight of herself in a superior setting; a sure proof whereof might have been found in a certain wilful pleasure which she had drawn from constantly impelling him to acts and admissions which she knew to be alien to his nature.

It was some revival of this idea which explained her exclamation, "How dare he?" For his conduct appeared more in the light of an outrage and insult to her than of a degradation of himself. He must be rescued from his position, she determined.

She stooped to pick up the bill from the floor as the brougham swung sharply round a corner. She looked out of the window; the coachman had turned into Berkeley Square; in another hundred yards she would reach home. She hastily pulled the check-string, and the footman came to the door. "Drive down the Mile-End road," she said; "I will fetch Sir John home." Lady Tamworth read the address on the bill. "Near the Pavilion Theatre," Mr. Dale had explained. She would just see the place this evening, she determined, and then reflect on the practical course to be pursued.

The decision relieved her of her sense of humiliation, and she nestled back among her furs with a sigh of content. There was a pleasurable excitement about her present impulse which contrasted very brightly with her recent ennui. She felt that her wish to do something, to exert an influence, had been providentially answered. The task, besides, seemed to her to have a flavour of antique chivalry; it smacked of the princess undoing enchantments, and reminded her vaguely of Camelot. She determined to stop at the house and begin the work at once; so she summoned the footman a second time and gave him the address. So great indeed was the charm which her conception exercised over her, that her very indignation against Julian changed to pity. He had to be fitted to the chivalric pattern, and consequently refashioned. Her harlequin fancy straightway transformed him into the romantic lover who, having lost his mistress, had lost the world and therefore, naturally, held the sale of baby-linen on a par with the painting of pictures. "Poor Julian!" she thought.

The carriage stopped suddenly in front of a shuttered window. A neighbouring gas-lamp lit up the letters on the board above it, Z. Moss. This unexpected check in the full flight of ardour dropped her to earth like a plummet. And as if to accentuate her disappointment the surrounding shops were aglare with light; customers pressed busily in and out of them, and even on the roadway naphtha-jets waved flauntingly over barrows of sweet-stuff and fruit. Only this sordid little house was dark. "They can't afford to close at this hour," she murmured reproachfully.

The footman came to the carriage door, disdain perceptibly struggling through his mask of impassivity.

"Why is the shop closed?" Lady Tamworth asked.

"The name, perhaps, my lady," he suggested. "It is Friday."

Lady Tamworth had forgotten the day. "Very well," she said sullenly. "Home at once!" However, she corrected herself adroitly: "I mean, of course, fetch Sir John first."

Sir John was duly fetched and carried home jubilant at so rare an attention. The tie was presented to him on the way, and he bellowed his merriment at its shape and colour. To her surprise Lady Tamworth found herself defending the style, and inveighing against the monotony of the fashions of the West End. Nor was this the only occasion on which she disagreed with her husband that evening. He launched an aphorism across the dinner-table which he had cogitated from the report of a divorce-suit in the evening papers. "It is a strange thing," he said, "that the woman who knows her influence over a man usually employs it to hurt him; the woman who doesn't, employs it unconsciously for his good."

"You don't mean that?" she asked earnestly.

"I have noticed it more than once," he replied.

For a moment Lady Tamworth's chivalric edifice showed cracks and rents; it threatened to crumble like a house of cards; but only for a moment. For she merely considered the remark in reference to the future; she applied it to her present wish to exercise an influence over Julian. The issue of that, however, lay still in the dark, and was consequently imaginable as inclination prompted. A glance at Sir Julian sufficed to finally reassure her. He was rosy and modern, and so plainly incapable of appreciating chivalric impulses. To estimate them rightly one must have an insight into their nature, and therefore an actual experience of their fire; but such fire left traces on the person. Chivalric people were hollow-cheeked with luminous eyes; at least chivalric men were hollow-cheeked, she corrected herself with a look at the mirror. At all events Sir John and his aphorism were beneath serious reflection; and she determined to repeat her journey upon the first opportunity.

The opportunity, however, was delayed for a week and occasioned Lady Tamworth no small amount of self-pity. Here was noble work waiting for her hand, and duty kept her chained to the social oar!

On the afternoon, then, of the following Friday she dressed with what even for her was unusual care, aiming at a complex effect of daintiness and severity, and drove down in a hansom to Whitechapel. She stopped the cab some yards from the shop and walked up to the window. Through the glass she could see Julian standing behind the counter. His hands (she noticed them particularly because he was displaying some cheap skeins of coloured wool) seemed perhaps a trifle thinner and more nervous, his features a little sharpened, and there was a sprinkling of grey in the black of his hair. For the first time since the conception of her scheme Lady Tamworth experienced a feeling of irresolution. With Fairholm in the flesh before her eyes, the task appeared difficult; its reality pressed in upon her, driving a breach through the flimsy wall of her fancies. She resolved to wait until the shop should be empty, and to that end took a few steps slowly up the street and returned yet more slowly. She looked into the window again; Julian was alone now, and still she hesitated. The admiring comments of two loungers on the kerb concerning her appearance at last determined her, and she brusquely thrust open the door. A little bell jangled shrilly above it and Julian looked up.

"Lady Tamworth!" he said after the merest pause and with no more than a natural start of surprise. Lady Tamworth, however, was too taken aback by the cool manner of his greeting to respond at once. She had forecast the commencement of the interview upon such wholly different lines that she felt lost and bewildered. An abashed confusion was the least that she expected from him, and she was prepared to increase it with a nicely-tempered indignation. Now the positions seemed actually reversed; he was looking at her with a composed attention, while she was filled with embarrassment.

A suspicion flashed through her mind that she had come upon a fool's errand. "Julian!" she said with something of humility in her voice, and she timidly reached out her little gloved hand towards him. Julian took it into the palm of his own and gazed at it with a sort of wondering tenderness, as though he had lighted upon a toy which he remembered to have prized dearly in an almost forgotten childhood.

This second blow to her pride quickened in her a feeling of exasperation. She drew her fingers quickly out of his grasp. "What brought you down to this!" She snapped out the words at him; she had not come to Whitechapel to be slighted at all events.

"I have risen," he answered quietly.

"Risen? And you sell baby-linen!"

Julian laughed in pure contentment. "You don't understand," he said. For a moment he looked at her as one debating with himself and then: "You have a right to understand. I will tell you." He leaned across the counter, and as he spoke the eager passion of a devotee began to kindle in his eyes and vibrate through the tones of his voice. "The knowledge of a truth worked into your heart will lift you, eh, must lift you high? But base your life upon that truth, centre yourself about it, till your thoughts become instincts born from it! It must lift you still higher then; ah, how much higher! Well, I have done that. Yes, that's why I am here. And I owe it all to you."