She knew her own crown had toppled, and grew a little bleak as she thought of it. There was no earldom for her to fall back upon. She looked older when off her guard. But she had determined to be loyal to the one friend she had ever had. The worst woman in the world can do that much. Therefore, when Isoult woke up she found herself made much of. The sun of her day-dreaming rose again and shone full upon her. By the end of the day they had reached Tortsentier. Isoult was fast in a prison that had no look of a prison, where Galors was mending his throat in an upper chamber.

Maulfry came and sat on the foot of his bed. Galors, strapped and bandaged till he looked like a mewed owl in a bush, turned his chalk face to her with inquiry shooting out of his eyes. He had grown a spiky black beard, from which he plucked hairs all day, thinking and scheming.

"Well," was all he said.

Maulfry nodded. "The story is true. She has the feet and hands. She is a little beauty. You have only to shut the hole in your neck."

Galors swore. "Let God judge whether that damned acrobat shall pay for his writhing! But the other shall be my first business. So she is here—you have seen her? What do you think of her?"

"I have told you."

The man's appetite grew as it fed upon Maulfry's praise of his taste.

"Ah—ah! Dame, I'm a man of taste—eh?"

Maulfry said nothing. Galors changed the note.

"How shall I thank you, my dear one?" he asked her.

"Ah," said she, "I shall need what you can spare before long."

Then she left him.



CHAPTER XIII

HIGH MARCH, AND A GREAT LADY

In the weeping grey of an autumn morning, but in great spirits of his own, Prosper left Gracedieu for High March. The satisfaction of having braved the worst of an adventure was fairly his; to have made good disposition of what threatened to fetter him by shutting off any possible road from his advance; and to have done this (so far as he could see) without in any sense withdrawing from Isoult the advantages she could expect—this was tunable matter, which set him singing before the larks were off the ground. He felt like a man who has earned his pleasure; and pleasure, as he understood it, he meant to have. The zest for it sparkled in his quick eyes as he rode briskly through the devious forest ways. Had Galors or any other dark-entry man met him now and chanced a combat, he would have bad it with a will, but he would have got off with a rough tumble and sting or two from the flat of the sword. The youth was too pleased with himself for killing or slicing.

However, there was nobody to fight. North Morgraunt was pretty constantly patrolled by the Countess's riders at this time. A few grimy colliers; some chair-turners amid their huts and white chips on the edge of a hidden hamlet; drovers with forest ponies going for Waisford or Market Basing; the hospitality and interminable devotions of a hermit by a mossy crucifix on Two Manors Waste; one night alone in a ruined chapel on the top of a down:—of such were the encounters and events of his journey. He was no Don Quixote to make desperadoes or feats of endurance out of such gear; on the contrary, he persistently enjoyed himself. Sour beer wetted his lips dry with talking; leaves made a capital bed; the hermit, in the intervals of his prayers, remembered his own fighting days in the Markstake, and knew what was done to make Maximilian the Second safely king. Everything was as it should be.

On the third day he fell in with a troop of horse, whose spears carried the red saltire of the house of Forz on their banneroles. Since they were bound as he was for the Castle, he rode in their company, and in due course saw before him on a height among dark pines the towers of High March, with the flag of the Lady Paramount afloat on the breeze. It was on a dusty afternoon of October and in a whirl of flying leaves, that he rode up to the great gate of the outer bailey, and blew a blast on the horn which hung there, that they might let down the bridge.

When the Countess Isabel heard who and of what condition her visitor was she made him very welcome. The Forz and the Gais were of the same country and of nearly the same degree in it. She had been a Forz before she married, and she counted herself so still, for the earldom of Hauterive was hers in her own right; and though she was Earl Roger's widow (and thus a double Countess Dowager) she could not but remember it. So she did Prosper every honour of hospitality: she sent some of her ladies to disarm him and lead him to the bath; she sent him soft clothing to do on when he was ready for it; in a word, put him at his ease. When he came into the hall it was the same thing she got up from her chair of estate and walked down to meet him, while all the company made a lane for the pair of them. Prosper would have knelt to kiss her hand had she let him, but instead she gave it frankly into his own.

"You are the son of my father's friend, Sir Prosper," she said, "and shall never kneel to me."

"My lady," said he, "I shall try to deserve your gracious welcome. My father, rest his soul, is dead, as you may have heard."

"Alas, yes," the Countess replied, "I know it, and grieve for you and your brothers. Of my Lord Malise I have also heard something."

"Nothing good, I'll swear," interjected Prosper to himself.

The Countess went on—

"Well, Sir Prosper, you stand as I stand, alone in the world. It would seem we had need of each other."

Prosper bowed, feeling the need of nobody for his part. Remember he was three-and-twenty to the Countess's thirty-five; and she ten years a widow. She did not notice his silence, but went on, glowing with her thoughts.

"We should be brother and sister for the sake of our two fathers," she said with a gentle blush.

"I never felt to want a sister till now," cried Master Prosper, making another bow. So it was understood between them that theirs was to be a nearer relationship than host and guest.

The Countess Isabel—or to give her her due, Isabel, Countess of Hauterive, Countess Dowager of March and Bellesme, Lady of Morgraunt— was still a beautiful woman, tall, rather slim, pale, and of a thoughtful cast of the face. She had a very noble forehead, level, broad, and white; her eyes beneath arched brows were grey—cold grey, not so full nor so dark as Isoult's, nor so blue in the whites, but keener. They were apt to take a chill tinge when she was rather Countess of Hauterive than that Isabel de Forz who had loved and lost Fulk de Breaute. She never forgot him, and for his sake wore nothing but silk of black and white; but she did not forget herself either; within walls you never saw her without a thin gold circlet on her head. Even at Mass she, would have no other covering. She said it was enough for the Countess of Hauterive, whom Saint Paul probably had not in his mind when he wrote his epistle. Her hair was a glory, shining and very abundant, but brown not black. Isoult, you will perceive, was a warmer, tenderer copy of her mother, owing something to Fulk. Isoult, moreover, had not been born a countess. Both were inaccessible, the daughter from the timidity of a wild thing, the mother from the rarity of her air. Being what she was, twice a widow, bereft of her only child, and burdened with cares which she was much too proud to give over, she never had fair judgment she was considered hard where she was merely lonely. Her greatness made her remote, and her only comforter the worst in the world—herself. Her lips drooped a little at the corners; this gave her a wistful look at times. At other times she looked almost cruel, because of a trick she had of going with them pressed together. As a matter of fact she was shy as well as proud, and fed on her own sorrows from lack of the power to declare them abroad. It was very seldom she took a liking for any stranger; doubtful if Prosper's lineage had won her to open to him as she had done. His face was more answerable; that blunt candour of his, the inquiring blue eyes, the eager throw-back of the head as he walked, above all the friendly smile he had for a world where everything and everybody seemed new and delightful and specially designed for his entertainment—this was what unlocked the Countess's darkened treasury of thought.

Once loosed she never drew back. Brother and sister they were to be. She made him hand her in to supper; he must sit at her right hand; her own cup-bearer should fill his wine-cup, her own Sewer taste all his meats. At the end of supper she sent for a great cup filled with wine; it needed both her hands. She held it up before she drank to him, saying, "Let there be love and amity between me and thee." The terms of this aspiration astonished him; he accepted honours easily, for he was used to observances at Starning; but to be thee'd and thou'd by this lady! As he stood there laughing and blushing like a boy she made him drink from the cup to the same wish and in the same terms. When once your frozen soul opens to the thaw all the sluices are away, truly. Prosper went to bed that night very well content with his reception. He saw his schemes ripening fast on such a sunny wall as this. His head was rather full, and of more than the fumes of wine; consequently in saying his prayers he did not remember Isoult at all. Yet hers had been sped out of Gracedieu Minster long before, and to the same gods. Only she had had Saint Isidore in addition; and she had had Prosper. Hers probably went nearer the mark. Until you have made a beloved of your saint or a saint of your beloved—it matters not greatly which—you will get little comfort out of your prayers.

It was, however, heedlessness rather than design which brought it about, that as the days at High March succeeded each other Prosper did not tell the Countess either of his adventure or of his summary method of achieving it. Design was there: he did not see his way to involving the Abbot, who was, he knew, a dependant of his hostess, and yet could not begin the story elsewhere than at the beginning. Something, too, kept the misfortunes of his wife from his tongue—an honourable something, not his own pride of race. But he, in fact, forgot her. The days were very pleasant. He hunted the hare, the deer, the wolf, the bear. He hunted what he liked best of all to hunt, the man; and he got the honour which only comes from successful hunting in that sort-the devout admiration of those he led. So soon as it was found out where his tastes and capacities lay he had as much of this work as he chose. High March was on the northern borders of the Countess's country; not far off was the Markstake, stormy, debatable land, plashy with blood. There were raids, there were hornings and burnings, lifting of cattle and ravishment of women, to be prevented or paid for. Prosper saw service. The High March men had never had a leader quite like him-so young, so light and fierce, so merry in fight. Isoult might eat her heart out with love; Prosper had the love of his riders, for by this they were his to a man.

There were other influences at work, more subtle and every bit as rapacious. There were the long hours in the hall by the leaping light of the fire and the torches, feasts to be eaten, songs to sing, dances, revels, and such like. Prosper was a cheerful, very sociable youth. He had the manners of his father and the light-hearted impertinence of a hundred ancestors, all rulers of men and women. He made love to no one, and laughed at what he got of it for nothing— which was plenty. There were shaded hours in the Countess's chamber, where the songs were softer and the pauses of the songs softer still; morning hours in the grassy alleys between the yew hedges; hours in the south walk in an air thick with the languors of warm earth and garden flowers; intimate rides in the pine wood; the wild freedom of hawking in the open downs; the grass paths; Yule; the music, the hopes of youth, the sweet familiarity, the shared books, the timid encroachments and gentle restraints, half-entreaties, half-denials:— no young man can resist these things unless he thinks of them suspectingly (as Prosper never did), and no woman wishes to resist them. If Prosper found a sister, Isabel began to find more than a brother. She grew younger as he grew older. They were more than likely to meet half way.



CHAPTER XIV

A RECORDER

In these delicate times of crisis Isoult found an advocate, a recorder, if you will be ruled by me. It was none too soon, for the brother and sister of High March had reached that pretty stage of intimacy when long silences are an embarrassment, and embarrassments compact equally of pleasure and pain. As far as the lady was concerned the pleasure predominated; the pain was reduced to sweet confusion, the air made tremulous with promise. I do not say that for Prosper the relationship did more than put him at his ease—but that is a good deal. Say the Countess was a fire and High March an armchair. Prosper had settled himself to stretch his legs and drowse. Poor Isoult was the wailing wind in the chimney—a sound which could but add to his comfortable well-being. It needs more than a whimper to tempt a man to be cold in your company. The recorder was timely.

Prosper and his Countess were hawking in the fields beyond the forest, and the sport had been bad. They had, in fact, their birds jessed and hooded and were turning for home, when Prosper saw some fields away a white bird—gull he thought—flying low. He sprang his tercel-gentle; the same moment the Countess saw the quarry and flew hers. Both hawks found at first cast; the white bird flew towards the falconers, circling the field in which they stood, with its enemies glancing about it. It gradually closed in, circling still round them and round, till at last it was so near and so low as almost to be in reach of Prosper's hand. He saw that it was not a gull, but a pigeon, and started on a reminiscence. Just then one of the towering falcons stooped and engaged. There was a wild scurry of wings; then the other bird dropt. The Countess cheered the hawks: Prosper saw only the white bird with a wound in her breast. Then as the quarry began to scream he remembered everything, and to the dismay of the lady leapt off his horse, ran to the struggling birds, and cuffed them off with all his might. He succeeded. The wounded bird fluttered, half flying, half hopping, across the grass, finally rose painfully into the air and soared out of sight. Meantime Prosper, breathless and red in the face, had hooded and bound the hawks. He brought hers back to the Countess without a word.

"My dear Prosper," said she, "you will forgive me for asking if you are mad?"

"I must seem so," he replied. "But I suppose every one has his tender part which some shaft will reach. Mine is reached when two hawks wound a white bird in the crop."

He spoke shortly, and still breathed faster than his wont. The Countess was piqued.

"It seems to me, I confess, inconvenient in a falconer that he should be nice as to the colour of his quarry. There must be some reason for this. I will forgive you for making a bad day's sport worse if you will tell me your story."

Prosper was troubled. He connected his story with Isoult, though he could hardly say why. He had merely seen a white bird before his marriage; yet without that sequel the story could have no point. He did not wish to speak of his marriage, if for no other reason than that it was much too late to speak of it. The other reasons remained as valid as ever; but he was bound to confess the superior cogency of this present one. Meanwhile the Countess clamoured.

"The story, Prosper, the story!" she cried. "I must and will have the story. I am very sure it is romantic; you are growing red. Oh, it is certainly romantic; I shall never rest without the story."

Prosper in desperation remembered a hawking mishap of his boyhood, and clutched at it.

"This is my story," he said. "When I was a boy with my brothers our father used to take us with him hawking on Marbery Down. There is a famous heronry in the valley below it whence you may be sure of a kill; but on the Down itself are great flocks of sheep tended by shepherds who come from all parts of the country round about and lie out by their fires. One day—just such a windy morning as this—my father, my brother Osric, and I were out with our birds, and did indifferently well, so far as I can remember. I had new falcon with me—a haggard of the rock which I had mewed and manned myself. It was the first time I had tried her on the Down, and she began by giving trouble; then did better, but finally gave more trouble than at first, as you shall hear. Towards noon I found myself separate from our company on a great ridge of the Down where it slopes steeply to the forest, as you know it does in one place. The flocks were out feeding on the slopes below me, and their herds—three or four boys and girls —were lying together by a patch of gorse, but one of them stood up after a while and shaded her eyes to look over the forest. Then I saw a lonely bird making way for the heronry. I remember it plainly; in the sun it looked shining white. I flew my haggard out of the hood at her, sure of a kill. She raked off at a great pace, as this one did just now; but in mid air she checked suddenly, heeled over, beat up against the wind, stooped and fell headlong at the shepherds. I could not tell what had happened; it was as if the girl had been shot. But, by the Saviour of mankind, this is the truth: I saw the girl who was standing throw her arms up, I heard her scream; the others scattered. Then I saw the battling sails of my falcon. She was on the girl. I spurred my pony and went down the hill headlong to the music of the girl's screaming. Never before or since have I seen a peregrine engage at such a quarry as that. She had her with beak and claws below the left pap. She had ripped up her clothes and drawn blood, sure enough. The poor child, who looked very starved, was as white as death: I cannot think she had any blood to spare. As for her screaming, I have not forgotten it yet—in fact, the bird we struck to-day reminded me of it and made me act as I did. To cut down my story, I pulled the hawk off and strangled it, gave the girl what money I had, said what I could to quiet her, and left her to be patched up by her friends. She was more frightened than hurt, I fancy. As I told you, I was a boy at the time; but these things stay by you. It is a fact at least that I am queasy on the subject of white birds. Before I came to High March, indeed it was almost my first day in Morgraunt, I saw and rescued a white bird from two hen-harriers; and now I have been troubled by another. I seem beset by white birds!"

"It is fortunate you have other hues to choose from," said the Countess with a smile, "or otherwise you would be no falconer. But your story is very strange. Have you ever consulted about it?"

"I have said very little about it," Prosper replied, remembering as he spoke the forest Mass which he had heard, and that he had discoursed upon this adventure with Alice of the Hermitage.

"The hawk pecked at the girl's heart," said the lady.

"It did not get so far as that, Countess."

"You speak prose, my friend."

"I am no troubadour, but speak what I know."

"The heart means nothing to you, Prosper!"

"The heart? Dear lady, I assure you the girl was not hurt. She is a young woman by now, probably wife to a clown and mother of half-a- dozen."

"Prosper, you disappoint me. Let us ride on. I am sick of these shivering grey fields."

The Countess was vexed, for the life of him he could not tell why. He made peace at last, but she would not tell him the cause of her morning's irritation.

That was not the only reminder he had that day—in fact, it was but the first. In the evening came another.

He was in the Countess's chamber after supper. She was embroidering a banner, and he had been singing to her as she worked. After his music the Countess took the lute from him, saying that she would sing. And so she did, but in a voice so low and constrained that it seemed more to comfort herself than any other.

Prosper sat by the table idly turning over a roll of blazonry—the coats of all the knights and gentlemen who had ever been in the service of High March. It was a roll carefully kept by the pursuivant, very fine work. He saw that his own was already tricked in its place, and recognized many more familiar faces. Suddenly he gave a start, and sat up stiff as a bar. He looked no further, but at the end of the Countess's song said abruptly—

"Tell me, Countess, whose are these arms?"

She looked at the coat—sable, three wicket-gates argent. "There is a story about that," she said.

"I beg you to tell it to me," said Prosper; "story for story."

"That is only fair," she laughed, having quite recovered her easy manner with him. "Come and sit by the fire, and you shall hear it. The arms," she began, "are those which were assumed by a young knight after a very bold exploit in my service. He came to me as Salomon de Born, and I think he was but eighteen—a mere boy."

Prosper, from the heights of his three-and-twenty years, nodded benignly.

"So much so," said the Countess, "that I fear I must have wounded his vanity by laughing away what he asked of me. This was no less than to lead a troop of my men against Renny of Coldscaur, an enemy and slanderer of mine, but none the less as great a lord as he was rascal. However, he begged so persistently that I gave in, finding other things about him—a mystery of his birth and upbringing, a steadfastness also and gravity far beyond his years—which drew me to put him to the proof of what he dared. He went, therefore, with a company of light horse, some fifty men. He was away eight weeks, and then came back—with but six men, it is true; but youth is prodigal of life, knowing so little of it."

"Life is given us to spend," quoth Prosper here.

"He came back with six men. But he brought the tongue of Blaise Renny in a silver cup, and three wicket-gates, which took two men apiece to carry."

"He had saved just enough men. That was wise of him, and like the king his namesake," Prosper said, approving of Salomon.

"It was what he said himself", pursued the Countess, "that it was a fortunate circumstance"

"And how did he win his adventure, and what had the wicket-gates to do with the business?"

"You shall hear. It seems that Coldscaur, which is in North Marvilion beyond the Middle Shires, stands on a fretted scarp. It is strongly defended by art as well as nature, for there are three ravines about it with a stepped path through each up to the Castle. These were defended about midway of each by a wicket-gate and a couple of towers. The gorges are so narrow that there is barely room for a man and horse to get through; the gates of course correspond."

"Fine defences," said Prosper.

"Very. Well, Salomon de Born with my fifty men seized and occupied a village at the foot of the scarp one night. In the morning there were his defences thrown up man-high, and my standard on the church tower. Renny was furious, and despatched a stronger force than he could afford to re-take the village. Salomon, counting upon this, had left two men in it to be killed; with the rest he scaled the scaur and waited in hiding to see what force Renny took out. He knew to a nicety the strength of the garrison, saw what there was to see, made his calculations, and thought he would venture it. He got over the rock, he and his men, by some means; came down the gorges from the top, secured the defences, and posted a couple of men at each wicket. With the rest he surprised the Castle. I believe, indeed, that all the men in it were killed as well as most of mine. Yet for three or four hours Coldscaur was in my hands."

"It should have been yours now," said Prosper, "with fifty of your men once in it."

"My friend, I didn't need Coldscaur. I have castles enough. But it was necessary to punish Renny."

"And that was done?"

"It was done. Salomon posted his men in the towers by the wicket- gates, and waited for Renny to return from the village. Luckily for him it grew dusk, but not dark, before he could be certain by which gorge Renny himself was coming in. When he had made sure of this he took all three wickets off their hinges, and sent six men to carry them home to High March. With the rest he waited for Renny. Finally he saw him riding up the stepped way, and, as his custom was, far ahead of his troop. You must know that these people are besotted with pride; the state they kept (and still keep, I suppose) was more than royal. No one must ride, walk, or stand within a dozen yards of Renny of Coldscaur. Salomon had calculated upon it. Well, it was dark before Renny reached the wicket. Someone (Salomon, no doubt) called for the word. Renny gave it; but it was his last. Salomon stabbed him at the same instant and pulled him off his horse out of the way. He sent the horse clattering up the hill. Renny's men followed it, nothing doubting. I might have had the better part of my men but for the subsequent foppery of the youth. He had Renny dead. He had Renny's tongue. He must needs have a silver dish to put it in, so as to present it honourably to me. He went to the Castle to get this. He got it; but he was discovered and pursued, and only he escaped—he and the six bearers of the wicket-gates. That is my story of the coat in return for yours of the bird. The hero of it took the name of Salomon de Montguichet after this performance, and my pursuivant devised him a blazon, with the legend, Entra per me."

"He did very well," said Prosper, "though he should have fought with Renny, and not stabbed him in the dark. But why did he bring the wicket-gates?"

"He said that since they had for once been held by honest men, he could not let them backslide. Moreover, they were in his way, and he knew not what else to do with them."

"And why did he take the man's tongue?"

"He said that the head must stay tongueless at Coldscaur to warn all traducers of me. True enough, the man has come to be remembered as Blaise Sanslang."

"I should have done otherwise," said Prosper.

"What would you have made of it, Prosper?"

"I should have brought the man alive to your feet; I should have advised you to give him a whipping and let him go."

"That would have been more merciless to Renny, my friend, than what Salomon de Montguichet did. I have told you that they are the proudest family in Christendom."

"I never thought of Renny," he answered; "I was thinking of myself in Salomon's place."

"Montguichet thought of me, Prosper."

"I also was thinking of you, Countess."

Presently he grew keen on his own thoughts again and asked—

"What became of Salomon de Born?"

"I cannot tell you," she replied, "except this, that he took service under the King of the Romans and went abroad. Of where he is now, or how he fares, I know nothing."

"I think he is dead," said Prosper.

"What is your reason?"

"I have seen another carrying his arms."

"But it may have been the man himself. A thin man, hatchet-faced, with hot, large eyes; a pale man, who looked not to have the sinew he proved to have."

Prosper looked thoughtful, a little puzzled too. "The description is familiar to me. I may have seen the man. But certainly it was not he who carried the Montguichet shield."

Suddenly he sprang up with a shout. He stood holding the table, white and shaky. The Countess ran to him and put her arm on his shoulder: "Prosper, Prosper, you have frightened me! What is your thought? Are you ill? I entreat you to tell me, Prosper."

He collected himself at once to reassure her.

"The man is dead," he said, "and I buried him. I remember his face; I remember a badge on his breast; I remember it all. But I do not understand—I do not see clearly as yet. I must think. I beg you to let me leave you for the present. To-morrow I will go to avenge Salomon de Montguichet."

The youth was quite wild and out of breath.

"Prosper!" cried the Countess, clinging to him, "I conjure you to tell me what this means. You will never leave me this night without a word. You cannot know—"

She could not finish what she longed to say. As for Prosper, he was in another world; it is doubtful whether he heard her.

"Countess," he said, "I can tell you nothing as yet. I know but half of the truth. But I must find out the whole, and to-morrow I will tell you what I mean to do. You must have me excused for this night."

She knew that she could say nothing more, although she had never yet seen him in this mood. But he reminded her strongly of his father; she felt that he and she had changed places and ages. So she bowed her head, and when she lifted it he was gone.

Pacing his room Prosper tried to reason out his tangle. This was not so easy as fighting, for he was pulled two different ways. Salomon de Montguichet was the dead man whom the lady had in the wood—that was clear. Galors had Salomon de Montguichet's arms—that too was clear. The trouble was to connect the two strings. What had Galors to do with the lady? Which of them had killed Salomon de Montguichet, or de Born, to give him his real name? How did this threaten Isoult? For the massed events of the long day drove him at last face to face with Isoult. He had sworn upon all knightly honour to save her neck. He thought he had saved it, but now he was not so sure. There was something undefinably sinister, some foreboding about the turn matters had taken (matters so diverse in their beginning) that day. Was he sure he had saved her? He must certainly be sure, he thought. Had he not sworn? And after all, she was his wife. That should count for something. He was not disposed to rate marriage highly; he knew very little about it, but he felt that it should count for something. The honour of the man's wife touched the honour of the man. Again, she was a very good girl. He recalled her—submissive, patient, recollected, pacing beside him on her donkey, as they brushed their way through brown beechwoods and stained wet bracken. He remembered her at her prayers—how kindly she took to the devotion. She was different from the hour she was a good Christian, he swore. Ah, so he had given her more than a free neck! He had given her pride in herself; nay, he had quickened a soul languid for want of spiritual food. And she looked very well praying. She was good-looking, he thought. Oh, she was a good girl!

But surely she was well where she was, could hardly be better. Galors had a split throat; he would be in Saint Thorn, crying peccavi in chapter, and gaining salvation with every sting of the scourge. The woman in the wood he had distrusted from the first moment he saw her watching eyes. She was bad through and through; she might be a worse enemy than Galors, or a church-load of pursy monks. But it was impossible that she should have anything to do with Galors, clean impossible. And if she had—why, he was going to her to-morrow, and would find out. Meantime, he would go to bed. Yes, he might go to bed. Was not Gracedieu sanctuary? Ah, he had forgotten that! All was well.

He went to bed; but Tortsentier was not to see him on the morrow. All was not well. He had a dream which drew all the apprehensions and suspicions of the day into one head. The hidden things were made plain, and the crooked things straight; for the first time, it seemed, he was to see openly—when his eyes were shut. He had, in spite of himself, centred them one by one in Isoult, and now he dreamed of her as she was, and of them as they were. This was his dream. He and she were together, lying under the stars in the open wood with his drawn sword between them, set edgeways as it had always been. He lay awake, but Isoult was asleep, and moaning in her sleep. The sound was like voiced sighs which came quickly with her breath. He lay and watched her in the perfectly clear light there was, and presently the moaning ceased, and she opened her eyes to look at him. But though they were wide, they were blank; he knew that she slept still. She moved her lips to speak, but without sound; she strained out her arms to him, but he could not take her. And, leaning more and more towards him, the edge of the sword pressed her bare bosom, yet she seemed not to heed it; and presently it broke the skin, and she pressed it in deeper, as if glad of the sharp pain; and then the blood leapt out and flooded her night-dress. Her arms dropt, she sighed once, she closed her eyes languidly as if mortally tired. Then she lay very still, white to the lips, and Prosper knew that she was dead. So in his own dream he cried out and tried to come at her, but could not because of the red sword.

He woke in a cold sweat and lay trembling, blenched with fear. The dream had been so vivid that involuntarily he turned in his bed to look again at what haunted him, the dying eyes, the white body, and the blood. Terror, when once he had accepted the fact that she was dead, gave place to pity—a pity more intense than he had ever conceived. He had pitied her on the night of their marriage, but never to such a degree that he felt heart-broken at the mere knowledge of such things. And now, as the principal actor in a play, she grew in importance. He began to see that she was more than an incident; she was of the stuff of his life.

What was more odd was, that in the dream he had wanted her, as she him; and that he could look back upon it now and understand the desire. With all the shock that still crowded about him till the shadowy room seemed full of it, there was this one beam of remembrance, like sunlight in a dusty place. He too had held out his arms: he had wanted to take her, to hold her, white and unearthly though she might be—dying as she certainly was. Waking, this seemed very strange to him, for he had never wanted her before; and though (as I say) the remembrance brought a glow along with it, he did not want her in that way now. Supposing that she were alive and lying here, he knew that he should not want her. But the red sword! He shuddered and closed his eyes; there she was, pitifully dead of a wound in the breast. I suppose he was not more superstitious than most people of his day, but he knew that he must go to Gracedieu.

He got up at once to arm himself; he had made all his preparations before sunrise. Then he left word for the Countess that he would return in a day or two, and set out.

The journey could not be done under three days; that gave him two nights in the forest, each of which brought the same dream. He arrived at the convent late in the evening, and asked to see the Abbess at once. The tranquil monotony of the place, its bells and recurrent chimes, the subdued voices of the nuns chanting an office in choir, brought him like a beaten ship into haven. He was reassured before he saw the Abbess.

"Yes, indeed," said that lady in answer to his outburst of questions, "the child is well. Not so bright as during the winter season, it may be; but the spring is no easy time for young people. I may tell you, Sir Prosper, that we have grown very fond of her. Indeed, I am often saying that I wonder how to do without her. She is so diligent and of so toward a disposition. You will find her well cared for, sleek, and quite good-looking. We have great hopes for her future if she makes a happy choice. But you will wish to see her and prove my words. I will send for her this moment."

The Abbess had her hand-bell in her hand. If she had rung it she would have given Prosper justification of his hurry. But the complacent youth forestalled her.

"I beg you, mother, to do nothing of the kind," he said. "She is well, you tell me, she is happy: that is all I cared to know. I have no wish to unsettle her, but leave her cheerfully and confidently with you, being well assured that you will not fail to send me word at High March should need be."

"I understand you, sir, and agree with you. You may be quite easy about her. We are regular livers, as you may guess, and small events are great ones to us. So you return to High March? I will beg you to carry with you my humble duty to her ladyship the Countess. She is well?"

"She is very well," said Prosper, and took his leave.

A frantic Gracedieu messenger started half a night behind him, but was stopped on Two Manors Waste by a party of outlaws, robbed of his letters, and hanged. Prosper's dream visited him for two nights of his journey back, and four nights at High March; but as no word or other warning came from Gracedieu to give it point, he grew to have some strange liking for it, since he knew that it meant nothing. It gave him new thoughts of Isoult; it convinced him, for instance, that since the girl was so good she must be affectionate when you came to know her. His own share in the nightly performance he could now set in humorous comparison with his waking state. He found it difficult to believe in the self of his dream, and was almost curious to see Isoult that he might pursue his juxtapositions. At this rate she filled his waking thoughts as well as his nights. The Countess was not slow to perceive that Prosper was changed, and she affected. His songs came less willingly from him, his sallies were either languid or too polite to be from the heart of the youth, who could make hers beat so fast. Thinking that he wanted work, she devised an expedition for him which might involve some danger and the lives of a dozen men. But she counted that lightly. He went on the fourth day after his return from Gracedieu, and the expedition proved effectual in more ways than one.

The dream stopped, and he forgot it.



CHAPTER XV

THREE AT TORTSENTIER

At Tortsentier there was very little daylight, because the trees about it formed a thick wall. The branches of the pines tapped at the windows on one side; on the other they linked arms with their comrades, and so stood for a mile on all sides of the tower. Paths there were none, nor ways to come by unless you were free of the place. The winter storms moaned, lashed themselves above it, yet below were hushed down to a long sighing. The quiet visitations of the snow, the dripping of the autumn rains, the sun's force, the trap-bite of the frost, or that new breath that comes stealing through woodlands in spring, were all strangers alike to the carpet of brown needles about Maulfry's hold. No birds ever sang there. Death and a great mystery, the dark, air like a lake's at noon, kept fur and feather from Tortsentier, and left Maulfry alone with what she had.

Within, it was a spacious place. A great hall ran the whole height (although not the whole area) of it, having a gallery midway up whence you gained what other chambers there were. Below the gallery were deep alcoves hung with tapestry (of which Maulfry was a diligent worker), and thickened with curtains; between every alcove hung trophies of shields and arms. Mossy carpets, skins, and piled cushions were on the floor; the place smelt of musk: it was lighted by coloured torches and lamps, and warmed with braziers. It was by a spiral stair that you found the gallery and doors of the other rooms, or as many of them as it was fitting you should find. There were doors there which were no doors at all unless occasion served. These rooms had windows; but the hall had only a lantern in the roof, and its torches. From all this it will appear that Isoult was a prisoner, since a prisoner you are if, although you can go out, there is nowhere for you to go; if, further, your hostess neither goes out herself nor gives you occasion to leave her. Yet Maulfry made her guest elaborately free of the place.

"Child," she said, "you see how I live here. My trees, my birds—" she had many birds in cages—"my collections of arms and arras and odd books, are my friends for want of better. If you can help me to any such I shall be very much obliged to you. Other friends I have— yourself I may count among them, one other you know,—but they are of the world, and refuse to hang upon my walls. Sometimes they pay me a visit, stay for a little season, remonstrate, argue with me, shrug, and leave me gladder than I was to receive them. I am a hermit, my child, when all's said. These other friends, these more constant friends, on the other hand, suit me better. They talk to me when I bid them, are silent when I want to think. They have no vapours, unless I give them of mine, no airs but what I choose to find in them. And they are complaisant, they seek nothing beyond my entertainment. My friends from outside come to please themselves and to take what they can of my store. Sometimes they take each other. One of them (not unknown to my Isoult!) will come before long—he is overdue now—and find my store enriched. I doubt he will turn thief. You may well blush, child, for, apart that it becomes you admirably, thieving is a sin, and naturally you cannot approve of it. It is to be hoped he has rifled no treasury already. There, there, I have your word for it; but you know my way! Living alone in the woods at a distance from men, which makes them ants in a swarm for me, I become a philosopher. Can you wonder?"

To such harangues, delivered with a pretty air of mockery and extravagance, which was never allowed to get out of hand, Isoult listened as she had listened to the cheerful prophetics of the Abbess of Gracedieu, with her gentle smile and her locked lips. Maulfry talked by the hour together while she and Isoult sat weaving a tapestry. For the philosopher which it seemed she was, the subject of the piece was very pleasant. It was the story of Troilus and Cresseide, no less, wherein Sir Pandarus, (departing from the custom) was represented a young man of tall and handsome presence, and the triangle of lovers like children. Diomede was an apple-cheeked school- boy, Troilus had a tunic and bare legs, Cresseide in her spare moments dandled a doll. Calchas, for his part, kept a dame-school in this piece, which for the rest was treated with a singular freedom. Isoult, poor girl, was occasionally troubled at her part of the work; but the philosopher laughed heartily at her.

"What ails thee with the piece, child?" she would cry out in her hearty way. "Dost thou think lovers are men and women, to be taken seriously? It is to be hoped they are not, forsooth! For if they are not innocent, what shall be said of their antics?" and more to the same tune.

While affecting to treat her with freedom, Maulfry kept in reality a steady rein.

"Go out?" she would cry in mock dismay, at the least hint of such a wish from the girl—"why under the sun should we go out? To see a thicket of twigs and breathe rotten vapours? Or do you think we have processions passing in and out of the tree-trunks? Ah, minx, 'tis a procession of one you would be spying for! Nay, nay, never look big eyes at me, child. I know your processioner better than you. He will come in his time; and whether he come through the door or down the stairs I cannot tell you yet. Who taught you, pray, that he was in the wood? Not I, I vow. Why should he not be skulking in the blue alcove awaiting the hour? You look thither; how you kindle at a word! Well, well, go and see for yourself if he is in the blue alcove."

Poor trembling Isoult went on tiptoe, was fool enough to peep through the curtains, but good soul enough to take Maulfry's railing in fair part. She got as much as she deserved, and the joke was none too good perhaps; but as a trick, it sufficed to keep her on the fine edge of expectation. She dared not go out for fear of missing Prosper. She grew so tight-strung as to doubt of nothing. Had Maulfry told her he would be with them to supper on such and such a night, she would have come shaking to the meal, rosy as a new bride, nothing doubting but that the next lift of her shy eyes would reveal him before her. Thus Maulfry by hints in easy degrees led her on; and not only did she not dare to go out, but she lost all wish to peer for him in the wood, because she had been led to the conviction that he was actually in the tower—a mysterious, harboured visitant who would appear late or soon, obedient to his destiny. A door even was pointed at, smiled and winked at, passed by light-foot as they went along the gallery. Maulfry had a biting humour which sometimes led her further than she was aware.

She kept Isoult in a fever by her tricks; by this particular trick she risked a different fire—jealousy. For of the four persons who made up the household, she alone went behind that door. Vincent, the young page, brought food and wine to the threshold; Maulfry came out and took them in. But there she was perfectly safe. Isoult could never be jealous of Prosper; she would despair, but would resent nothing he might do. Jealousy requires two things exorbitantly—self-love and a sensitive surface. Isoult loved Love and Prosper—the two in one glorious image; and as for her surface, that, like the rest of her, body and soul, was his when Love allowed. Nor was she even curious, at first. Many thrashings, acquaintance with her world which was close if not long, and a deeply-driven scorn of herself threw her blindly upon the discretion of the only man she had ever found to be at once splendid and humane. What he chose was the law and what he declared the prophets. But she might get curious on other grounds, on grounds where destiny and suchlike mannish appendages did not hold up a finger at her. And in fact she did.

* * * * *

Meantime Maulfry took charge of her body and will. Isoult was obedient in everything but one. Maulfry, who always saw the girl undress and go to bed, objected to her prayers.

"Pray!" she would call out, "for what and to what do you pray? Pray to your husband when you have one, and he will give you according to your deserts, which he alone can appraise. Trust him for that. But to crave boons you know little of, from a God of whom you know nothing at all, save that you made him in your own image—what profit can that be?"

To which Isoult replied, "He told me always to pray, ma'am, and I cannot disobey any of his words."

"Ah, I remember he was given to the game. Hum! And what else did he tell you, child?"

"Deal justly, live cleanly, breathe sweet breath," Isoult answered in a whisper, as if she were in church: "praise God when He is kind, bow head and knees when He is angry, look for Him to be near at all times. Do this, and beyond it trust to thine own heart."

Maulfry pished and pshawed at this hushed oracle. "You would do better to eat well and sleep softly. 'Twould bring you nearer your heart's desire. Men like a girl to be sleek."

But in this Isoult had her way, though she said her prayers in bed. In all else she was meek as a mouse. Maulfry made her dress to suit her own taste, and let down her hair. The dress was of thin silk, fitted close, and was cut low in the neck. Isoult, who had known pinned rags, and had gone feet and legs bare without a thought, went now as if she were naked, or clothed only in her shame. But it was the fashion Maulfry adopted towards her own person, and there were no others to convict her. Nanno the old serving-woman and Vincent the page, who was only a boy, made up the household-except for the closed door. Nanno never looked at anything higher than the ground; and as for Vincent, he was in love with Isoult, and would sooner have looked at Christ in judgment.

Of those two people Nanno was believed to be dumb; Isoult, at least, never got speech of her. Vincent, who was treated by Maulfry as if he had been a mechanism, was a very simple machine. If Maulfry had been less summary with him she might have prevented the inevitable; but like all people with brains she thought a simpleton was an ass, and kicks your only speech with such. Vincent and Isoult, therefore, became friends as the days went on. Maulfry's cagebirds drew their heads together, and in Vincent's case, at any rate, it was not long before the blood began to beat livelier for the contact. Isoult was as simple as he was, and concealed nothing from him that came up in their talks together. She knew much more than he about birds, about the woods, the country beyond the forest—great rolling sheep-pastures, dim stretches of fen, sleepy rivers, the heaths and open lands about Malbank. Of all these things which came to him through her voice almost with a breath of their own roving air, he knew absolutely nothing, whereas there was very little county-lore which she did not know. She seemed indeed to him a woodland creature herself, in touch with the birds and beasts. She could put her hand into a cage full of them; the little twinkling eyes were steady upon her, but there was no fluttering or beating at the bars. Her hand closed on the bird, drew it out: the next minute it was free upon her shoulder, peeping into her sidelong face. She could hold it up to her lips: it would take the seed from her. The horses knew her call and her speaking voice. They would go and come, stand or start, as she whispered in their pricked ears. Vincent thought she might easily be a fairy. But, "No, Vincent," she would say to that, "I am a very poor girl, poorer than you."

One day Vincent disputed this point.

"You go in silks and have pearls on your head."

"They are not mine, Vincent."

"My mistress loves you."

"Oh, in love I am very rich," said the girl.

"Everybody would love you, I think," he dared.

But she shook her head at this.

"I have not found that. I am not sure of anybody's love."

"I know of one person of whom you may be very sure," said the boy, out of breath.

"But I never meant that when I said I was rich. I meant that I was rich in love, not in being loved. Ah, no!"

"You ask not to be loved, Isoult?"

"Oh, it would be impossible to be loved as I mean, as I love."

"I would like to know that. Whom do you love?"

"Why, my lord, of course! Must I not love my lord?"

"Your lord!" stammered Vincent, red to the roots of his hair. "Your lord! I never knew that you loved a lord." He gulped, and went on at random—"And where is your lord?"

"I cannot tell. He may be in this castle. I only know that I shall see him when his time comes."

"If he is in this castle, Isoult," said Vincent, sober again, "his time is not yet."

She caught her breath.

"How do you know that?" she panted.

"I know that there is a great lord in the Red Chamber, him that Madam Maulfry tends with her own hands."

"Ah, ah! You have seen him?"

"No, I have never seen him. He is very ill."

Isoult gazed at him, shocked to the soul. Ill, and she not near by!

"Oh, Vincent," she whispered. "Oh, Vincent!"

"Yes, Isoult,"—Vincent had caught some breath of her horror, and whispered,—"Yes, Isoult, he is very ill. He has been ill since the autumn, with bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. I know that is true, though I have never seen him since he was brought here swathed up in a litter; but I once saw Madam Maulfry bury something in the wood, very early in the morning. And I was frightened. Ah! I have seen strange things here, such as I dare not utter even now. So I watched my time and dug up what she had concealed. They were bloody clothes, Isoult, very many of them, and ells long! So it is true."

Isoult swayed about like a broken bough. Vincent ran to catch her, fearing she would fall. He felt the shaking of her body under his hands. That frightened him. He began to beseech.

"Isoult, dear Isoult, I have hurt you, I who would rather die, I who— am very fond of you, Isoult. Look now, be yourself again—think of this. He may not be ill by now; he is likely much better. I will find out for you. Trust me to find it all out."

"No, no, no," she whispered in haste; "you must do nothing, can do nothing. This is mine. I will find out"

"Will you ask Madam Maulfry?" said Vincent. "She will kill me if she knows that I have told you. Not that I mind that," he added in his own excuse, "but you will gain nothing that way."

"No," Isoult answered curtly. "I will find out by myself. Hush! Some one is coming. Go now."

Vincent went slowly away, for he too heard the sweep of Maulfry's robe. There was a long looking-glass in the wall, flickering over which Isoult's eyes encountered their own woeful image-brooding, reproachful, haunted eyes; this would never do for her present business. Determined to meet craft with craft, she wried her mouth to a smile, she drove peace into her eyes, took a bosomful of breath, and turned to be actress for the first time in her life. This meant to realize and then express herself. She was like to become an artist.

Towards the end of that night her brain swam with fatigue. She had had to study, first Maulfry, second, her new self, third, her old self. In studying Maulfry she began unconsciously to prepare for the shock to come—the shock of a free-given faith, than which no crisis can be more exquisite for a child. So far, however, she had no cause to distrust her chatelaine's honour, nor even her judgment. Both, she doubted not, were in Prosper's keeping.

Maulfry was in a gay, malicious humour. She pinched Isoult's cheek when she met her.

"Tired of waiting, my minion?" she began.

"No, ma'am, I am not tired at all."

"That is well. I went by the eye-shine. So you are still patient for the great reward! Well, build not too high, my dear. All men are alike, as I find them."

"My reward is to serve, ma'am, not to win."

"It is a reward one may weary of with time. There may be too much service where the slave is willing, child. But to win gives an appetite for more winning; and so the game goes on."

Again, later on, she said—

"I should like him to see you tonight, child. He would be more malleable set near such a fire. Your cheeks are burning bright! As for your big eyes, I believe you burnish them. Do you know how handsome you are, I wonder?"

"No one has ever told me that but you, ma'am," said Isoult, demure.

"Pooh, your glass will have told you. They don't lie."

"I never had a glass till I came here. Not even at the convent."

"And did you never get close enough to use somebody's eyes?" said Maulfry, with a sly look.

Isoult had nothing to say to this. Touch her on the concrete of her love, and she was always dumb.

"Well then, I will stay flattering you, and advise," Maulfry pursued. "When that august one chooses to unveil, do you present yourself on knees as you now are. In two minutes you will not be on your own, but on his, if I know mankind."

Isoult changed the talk.

"Do you know, or can you tell me, when my lord will come out, ma'am?" she ventured.

"Come out, child? Out of what? Out of a box?" Maulfry cried in mock rage. "'Tis my belief you know as much as I do. 'Tis my belief you have been at a keyhole."

Mockery gave way; the matter was serious.

"Remember now, Isoult, in doing that you will disobey a greater than I, and as good a friend. And remember what disobedience may mean."

Again she changed her tone in view of Isoult's collapse.

"You look reproaches," she said; "your eyes seem to say, like a wounded hare's, 'Strike me again. I must quiver, but I will never run.' So, child, so, I was but half in earnest. You are an obedient child, and so I will tell Messire, if by any chance I should see him first." And so on, until they went to bed.

When at last that breathing space came, Isoult was nearly choked with the fatigue of her artistic escapades; but there was no time to lose. As soon as she dared she got up in the dark, put her cloak over her night-dress, and crept out into the gallery. The door creaked as she opened it; she stood white and quailing, while her heart beat like a hammer. But nothing stirred. She went first to Maulfry's door and listened. She heard her breathing. All fast there. Then like a hare she fled on to the door she knew so well. There was a light under it: she heard a rustle as of paper or parchment. Whoever was there was turning the leaves of a book. In the silence which seemed to press upon her ears and throb in them, she debated with herself what she should do. She knew that there was indeed no question about it. If he was ill, everything—all her humility and all his tacit authority— must give way. There was but one place for a wife. Maulfry did not know she was his wife. She listened again. Inside the room she now heard some one shift in bed, and—surely that was a low groan. Oh, Lord! Oh, Love! She turned the handle; she stood in the doorway; she saw Galors sitting up in bed with a book on his knees, a lamp by his side. His sick face, bandaged and swathed, glowered at her, with great hollow eyes and a sour mouth dropped at one corner.

She stood unable to move or cry.

"All is well, dear friend," said Galors; "I did but shift and let a little curse. Go to bed, Maulfry."

Isoult had the wit to withdraw. What little she had left after that pointed a shaking finger at one thing only—flight. She had been unutterably betrayed. Her conception of the universe reeled over and was lost in fire. There was no time to think of it, none to be afraid; she did what there was to do swiftly, with a clearer head than she had believed herself capable of. She slipt back to her room without doubt or terror, and put on the clothes in which she had come from the convent, a grey gown with a leather girdle, woollen stockings, thick shoes—over all a long red hooded cloak. This done she stood a moment thinking. No, she dare not try the creaking door again; the window must serve her turn. She opened it and looked out. Through the fretty tracery of the firs she could see a frosty sky, blue-grey fining to green, green to yellow where the moon swam, hard and bright. There was not a breath of air.

She climbed at once on to the window-ledge, and stood, holding to the jamb, looking down at the black below.

A great branch ran up to the wall at a right angle; it seemed made for her intent. Sitting with your legs out of the window it was easy to take hold of a branch. She tried; it was easy, but not in a cloak. So she sat again on the sill, took off her cloak, and tried once more. Soon she was out of the window, swinging by the branch. Then her feet touched another, and very slowly (for she was panic-stricken at the least noise) she worked her way downwards to the trunk of the great tree. Once there it was easy; she was soon on the ground. But she had no notion what to do next, save that she must do it at once—whither to turn, how to get out of the wood the best and safest way. Then another thing struck her. She would be chased, that was of course. She had been chased before, and tracked, and caught. Little as she could dare that, what chance had she, a young girl flying loose in this part of the forest, a young girl decently dressed, looking as she knew now that she looked; what chance had she indeed? Well, what was she to do? She remembered Vincent.

Vincent and Nanno did not sleep in the tower: that would have been inconvenient in Maulfry's view. They had a little outhouse not ten paces from it, and slept there. Thither went Isoult, jumping at every snapt twig; the door yielded easily, but which bed should she try? Nanno, she knew, snored, for Vincent had once made her laugh by recounting his troubles under the spell of it. Well, the left-hand bed was undoubtedly Nanno's at that rate; Isoult went to the right-hand bed and felt delicately with her hand at its head. Vincent's curls!

Then she knelt down and put her face close to the boy's, whispering in his ear.

"Whisper, Vincent, whisper," she said; "whisper back to me. Do you love me, Vincent? Whisper."

"You know that I love you, Isoult," Vincent whispered. "Hush! not too loud," said she again. "Vincent, will you get up and come into the wood with me? I want to tell you something. Will you come very quietly indeed?"

"Yes," said Vincent. The whole breathless intercourse worked into his dreams of her; but he woke and sat up.

"Come," said Isoult. She crept out again to wait for him.

Vincent came out in his night-gown. The moon showed him rather scared, but there was no doubt about his sentiments. Love-blind Isoult herself could have no doubt. She lost no time.

"Vincent, I must tell you everything. I shall be in your hands, at your mercy. I must go away at once, Vincent. If I stay another hour I shall never see the daylight again. They will kill me, Vincent, or do that which no one can speak of. Then I shall kill myself. This is quite true. I have seen something to-night. There is no doubt at all. Will you help me, Vincent?"

Vincent gaped at her. "How—what—why—what shall I do?" he murmured, beginning to tremble. "Oh, Isoult, you know how I—what I whispered—!"

"Yes, yes, I know. That is why I came. You must do exactly what I tell you. You must lend me some of your clothes, any that you have, now, at once. Will you do this?'

"My clothes!" he began to gasp.

"Yes. Go and get them, please. But make no noise, for the love of Christ."

Vincent tip-toed back. He returned, after a time of dreadful rummaging in the dark, with a bundle.

"I have brought what I could find. They are all there. I could not bring what I put on every day, for many reasons. These are the best I have. How will you—can you—? They are not easy to put on, I think, for a girl."

Poor Vincent! Isoult had no time nor heed for the modesty proper to lovers.

"I will manage," she said. "Turn round, please."

Vincent did as he was bid. He even shut his eyes. Presently Isoult spoke again.

"Could you find me a pair of scissors, Vincent?" She had been quick to learn that beauty must be obeyed. She would have asked Vincent for the moon if she had happened to want it, and would have seen him depart on the errand without qualm. Sure enough, he brought the scissors before her held-out hand had grown tired.

"Cut off my hair," she said, "level with my shoulders."

"Your hair!" cried the poor lad. "Oh, Isoult, I dare not."

It reached her knees, was black as night, and straight as rain. It might have echoed Vincent's reproach. But the mistress of both was inexorable.

"Cut it to clear my shoulders, please."

He groaned, but remembered that there would be spoils, that he must even touch this hedged young goddess. So as she stood, doubleted, breeched, and in his long red hose, he hovered round her. Soon she was lightened of her load of glory, and as spruce as a chamber-page.

"Now," she said, "you must tell me the way to the nearest shelter. There is a place called St. Lucy's Precinct, I have heard. Where is that?"

He told her. Keep straight away from the moon. It was just there: he pointed with his hand. As long as the moon held she could not fail to hit it. Beyond the pine-wood there was an open shaw; she could keep through that, then cross a piece of common with bracken cut and stacked. Afterwards came a very deep wood, full of beech-timber. You crossed a brook at Four Mile Bottom,—you could hear the ripples of the ford a half-mile away,—and held straight for the top of Galley Hill. After that the trees began again, oaks mostly. A tall clump of firs would lead you there. Beyond them was the yew-tree wood. The precinct was there. But the moon was her best lamp. He was talking to her in language which she understood better than he. She could never miss the road now.

She thanked him. Then came a pause.

"I must go, Vincent," said she. "You have been my friend this night. I will tell my lord when I see him. He will reward you better than I."

"He can never reward me!" cried Vincent.

She sighed and turned to go, but he started forward and held her with both hands at her waist. She seemed so like a boy of his age, it gave him courage.

"Isoult," he stammered, "Isoult!"

"Yes, Vincent," says she.

"Are you going indeed?"

"I must go at once."

"Shall I see you again?"

"Ah, I cannot tell you that."

"Do you care nothing?"

"I think you have been my friend. Yes, I should like to see you again, some day."

"Oh, Isoult—"

"What?"

"Will you give me something?"

"What have I, Vincent? If I could you know that I would."

He had her yet by the waist. There was no blinking what he wanted. Isoult stood.

"You may kiss me there," she said with the benignity of a princess, and gave him her hand.

The boy's mouth was very near her cheek. Something—who knows what?— checked him. He let go her waist, dropped on his knees and kissed the hand, turned little prince in his turn. Isoult was as near loving him then as she could ever be. This was no great way, perhaps, but near enough for immediate purposes. When Vincent got up she gave him her hand frankly to hold. They were two children now, and like two children kissed each other without under-thought. Then, as she sped away from the moon, Vincent crept back to his cold bed with an armful of black hair.



CHAPTER XVI

BOY AND GIRL

The woodland Mass in the yew-tree glade was served next morning by an acolyte in cassock and cotta. The way of it was this. Alice of the Hermitage was setting the altar in the light of a cloudy dawn, when she heard a step and the rustling of branches behind her. Looking quickly round, she saw a boy come out of the thicket, who stood echoing her wonder. He was a dark-haired slim lad, in leather jerkin and breeches, had crimson hose on his long legs, on his head a green cap with a pheasant's tail-feather in it. The cap he presently took off in salutation. He said his name was Roy. He had a simple direct way of answering questions, and such untroubled eyes; he was moreover so plainly a Christian, that when he asked Alice if he might serve the Mass she went advocate for him to the priest. So it came about that Isoult, having breakfasted, lay asleep in Alice's bed when a knight came cantering into the precinct followed by a page on a cob. His gilded armour blazed in the sun, a tall blue plume curtesied over his casque. He was so brave a figure—tall and a superb horseman—and so glittering from top to toe, that the old hermit, who came peering out to see, thought him a prince.

"What may your Highness need of Saint Lucy's poor bedesman?" said the hermit, rubbing his hands together.

"My Highness needs the whereabouts of a flitted lady," said the knight in a high clear voice.

Isoult, whom the clatter had awakened, lay like a hare in her form. At this time she feared Maulfry more than Galors.

"Great sir, we have no flitted ladies here. We are very plain folk." So much reproof of gilded armour and its appurtenances the hermit ventured on. But the knight was positive.

"She would have passed this way," he called out. "I know whither she would go. This hold of yours is dead in her road. So advise, hermit."

"I will call Alice," said the hermit.

"Call the devil if he will help you," the other replied.

Isoult heard Alice go out of the cottage.

"Child," said the hermit, "this gentleman seeks a flitted lady who should have passed by here on her way. Have you seen aught of such an one? Your eyes are better than most."

There followed a pause, which to the trembler in the bed seemed time for a death-warrant. Then the quiet voice of Alice told out—

"I have seen no lady. Wait. I will ask."

Isoult heard her returning step. When Alice came into the room she saw Isoult standing ready, all of a tremble.

"Oh, Alice," says she, clinging to her and speaking very fast, "I am the girl they are hunting. I am not a boy. I have deceived you. If they find me they will take me away."

"Will they kill you?"

"Ah, no! There is not enough mercy with them for that."

"Ah, you have done no ill?"

"I served God this morning. I could not have dared."

"True. Who is that knight?"

"I will tell you everything. No man could be so wicked as that knight. It is a woman, desperately wicked. She is in league with a man who would do the worst with me. Save me! save me! save me!" She began to wring her hands, and to blubber, without wits or measure left.

Alice put her hands on her. "Yes, I will save you. Get into bed and lie down. There is a page with the knight. Do you know him?"

"Yes, yes. He will do no harm. He is good."

"Very well. Lie down, and you shall be saved."

Alice went out again into the open.

"Sir knight," she was heard to say, "I have asked Roy, who came hither this morning early to serve our Mass. He has seen no one."

"Who is Roy?" said the knight sharply.

"He was server this morning. He is asleep after a long journey."

"Where?"

"Sir, we have little enough room. He is in my own chamber lying on my bed."

The knight gave a dry laugh.

"You mean that I may not venture into a lady's chamber, shameface? Well, a boy may go where a boy is, I suppose. Vincent, go and explore the acolyte."

"The page may come," said Alice, and watched him go, not without interest, perhaps not without amusement.

The unconscious Vincent was Isoult's next visitant, stepping briskly into the room. He came right up to the bed as in his right and element, a boy dealing with a boy's monkey tricks. One watchful grey eye, the curve of one rosy cheek peering from the blankets, told him a new story.

"Oh, Isoult," says he in a twitter, "is it you indeed?"

"Yes, hush! You will never betray me, Vincent?"

"Betray!" he cried. "Ah, Saints! My tongue would blister if I let the truth on you. But you are quite safe. The damsel won't let her in; she thinks she has a man to deal with. Me she let in!" Vincent chuckled at the irony of the thing. Then he grew anxious over his beloved.

"You had no mishaps? You are not hurt? Tired?"

"All safe. Not tired now. What will she do next?"

"Ah, there! She is for High March. That I know. She means to find you there. She means mischief. You must take great care. You have never seen her in mischief. I have. Oh, Christ!" He winced at the recollection.

"I will go advisedly," said Isoult. "Have no fear for me. I shall be there before she is."

Vincent sighed. "I must go. Good-bye, Isoult. I shall see you again, I am very sure."

"I hope you will. Good-bye."

He did not dare so much as touch the bed, but went out at once to make his report. He had questioned the boy—a dull boy, but he thought honest. Assuredly he had seen no lady on his way. His lies deceived Maulfry, who would have known better but for her proneness to think everybody a fool. Soon Isoult heard the thud of hoofs on the herbage; then Alice came running in to hear the story at large.

The two girls became very friendly. Their heads got close together over Prosper and Galors and Maulfry—the Golden Knight who was a woman! The escape savoured a miracle, was certainly the act of some heavenly power. An Archangel, Alice thought, to which Isoult, convinced that it was Love, assented for courtesy.

"Though for my part," she added, "I lean hardly upon Saint Isidore."

"You do well," said Alice, "he is a great saint. Is he your patron?"

"I think he is," said Isoult.

"Then it is he who has helped you, be sure. No other could know the ins and outs of your story so well, or make such close provision. The Archangels, you see, are few, and their business very great." Isoult agreed.

Of Prosper Alice could not get a clear image. When Isoult was upon that theme her visions blinded her, and sent her for refuge to abstractions. She candidly confessed that he did not love her; but then she did not ask that he should.

"But you pray, 'Give him me all,'" Alice objected.

"Yes, I want to be his servant, and that he should have no other. I cannot bear that any one should do for him what I can do best. That is what I tell the Holy Virgin."

"And Saint Isidore, I hope," said Alice gently; but Isoult thought not.

"It would be useless to tell Saint Isidore," she explained.

"He is a man, and men think differently of these matters. They want more, and do not understand to be contented with much less."

"Forgive me, Isoult. I know nothing of love and lovers. But if you marry this lord—as I suppose you might?"

"He might marry me," said Isoult slowly.

"Well, then, is there no more to look for in marriage but the liberty to serve?"

"I look for nothing else."

"But he might?"

"Ah, ah! If he did!"

"Well?"

"Oh, Alice, I love him so!"

"Darling Isoult—I see now. Forgive me."

The two friends cried together and kissed, as girls will. Then they talked of what there was to do. Isoult was resolute to go.

"She will ride straight to High March," she said. "I know her. My lord is there. If she finds not me, she will find him, and endanger his ease. I must be there first. She must follow the paths, however they wind, because she is mounted on a heavy horse. I shall go through the brakes by ways that I know. I shall easily outwit her in the forest."

"But you cannot walk, dearest. It is many days to High March."

"I shall ride."

"What will you ride, goose?"

"A forest pony, of course."

"Will you go as you are—like a boy, Isoult?"

Alice was aghast at the possibility; but Isoult, who had many reasons for it apart from her own safety (forgotten in the sight of Prosper's), was clear that she would. Prosper she knew was the guest of the Countess Isabel, a vaguely great and crowned lady; probably he was one of many guests. "And how shall I, a poor girl, come at him in the midst of such a company?" she asked herself. But if she went with a tale of being his page Roy he might admit her to some service, to hand his cup, or just to lie at his door of a night. The real Roy had done more than this; he would never refuse her so much. So she thought at least; and at the worst she would have space to tell her message.

At noon, the forest pony captured and haltered with a rope, she started. Alice was tearful, but Isoult, high in affairs, had no time to consider Alice. She gave her a kiss, stooping from the saddle, thanked her for what she had done on Prosper's account, and flew. She never looked back to wave a hand or watch a hand-waving; she was in a fever for action. Going, she calculated profoundly. There was a choice of ways. The great road from Wanmouth to High March skirted Marbery Down (where she had watched the stars and heard the sheep-bells many a still night), and then ran east by the forest edge to Worple. It only took in Worple by a wide divagation; after that it curved back to the forest, ran fairly clean to Market Basing, thence over ridges and coombs, but climbing mostly, it fetched up at High March. It was a military road. Well, she might follow Maulfry on this road till within a couple of days of the castle; it would ensure safety for her, and a good footing for her beast. On the other hand, if she rode due north over everything (as she knew she could), she would steal at least one more day. And could she afford to lose a clear day with Prosper? Ah, and it would give a margin against miscarriage of the news by any adverse fate on either of them. Before she framed the question she knew it answered. Her road then was to be dead north across the edge of Spurnt Heath (where her father's cottage was), past Martle Brush, stained with the black blood of Galors, then on to the parting of the ways, and by the right-hand road to High March. Thinking it over, she put her journey at three, and Maulfry's at four days. Maulfry's was actually rather less, as will appear.

If all this prove dull to the reader, I can only tell him that he had better know his way about Morgraunt than lose it, as I have very often done in the course of my hot-head excursions. There are so many trackless regions in it, so many great lakes of green with never an island of a name, that to me, at least, it is salvation to have solid verifiable spots upon which to put a finger and say—"Here is Waisford, here Tortsentier, here is the great river Wan, here by the grace of God and the Countess of Hauterive is Saint Giles of Holy Thorn." Of course to Isoult it was different. She had been a forester all her life. To her there were names (and names of dread) not to be known of any map. Deerleap, One Ash, the Wolves' Valley, the Place of the Withered Elm, the Charcoal-Burners', the Mossy Christ, the Birch- grove, the Brook under the Brow—and a hundred more. She steered by these, with all foresters. What she did not remember, or did not know, was that Maulfry had also lived in Morgraunt and knew the ways by heart. Still, she had a better mount than the Lady of Tortsentier, and Love for a link-boy.

However fast she rode for her mark, her way seemed long enough as she battled through that shadowed land, forded brooks, stole by the edge of wastes or swamps, crossed open rides in fear what either vista might set bare, climbed imperceptibly higher and higher towards the spikes of Hauterive, upon whose woody bluffs stands High March. Not upon one beast could she have done what she did; one took her a day and a night going at the pace she exacted. She knew by her instincts where the herds of ponies ran. It was easy to catch and halter any one she chose; no forest beast went in fear of her who had the wild-wood savour in her hair—but it meant more contriving and another stretch for her tense brain. For herself, she hardly dared stay at all. Prosper's breast under a dagger! If she had stayed she would not have slept. The fever and the fever only kept her up; for a slim and tender girl she went through incredible fatigues. But while the fever lasted so did she, alert, wise, discreet, incessantly active. Part of her journey—for the half of one day—she actually had Maulfry in full view; saw her riding easily on her great white Fleming, saw the glint of the golden armour, and Vincent ambling behind her on his cob, catching at the leaves as he went, for lack of something better. She was never made out by them,—at a time like this her wits were finer than her enemy's,—so she was able to learn how much time she had to spare. That night she slept for three hours. As for her food, we know that she could supply herself with that; and when the deer failed her, she scrupled nothing (she so abject with whom she loved!) to demand it of whomsoever she happened to meet. She grew as bold as a winter robin. One evening she sat by a gipsy fire with as shrewd a set of cut-throats as you would wish to hang. She never turned a hair. Another night she fell in with some shaggy drovers leading cattle from March into Waisford, and shared the cloak and pillow of one of them without a quiver. Having dozed and started half-a-dozen times in a couple of hours, she got up without disturbing her bed-fellow and took to the woods again. So she came to her last day, when she looked to see the High March towers and what they held.

On that day at noon, as she sat resting near a four-went-way, she heard the tramp of horses, the clatter of arms. She hid herself, just in time, in a thicket of wild rose, and waited to see what was threatening. It proved to be a company of soldiers—she counted fifty, but there were more—well armed with spears, whose banneroles were black and white. They rode at a trot to the crossways; there one cried halt. They were within ten yards of her, but happily there were no dogs. Then she heard another horse—that of the captain, as she guessed. She saw him come round the bend of the ride, a burly man, black upon a black horse. There were white feathers in his helmet; on his shield three white wicket-gates. Galors! At this moment her heart did not fail her. It scarcely beat faster. She was able to listen at her ease.

They debated of ways; Galors seemed in doubt, and vexed at doubting. One of them pointed the road to High March.

"No, by the Crucified," said Galors, "that is no road for me just yet, who once showed a shaven crown upon it. I leave High March to the Golden Knight for the hour. He shall make my way straight, bless him for a John Baptist. We are for Wanmeeting, my friends. Wanmeeting, then Goltres."

Said another—"Sir, if that road lead to High March, we must go straight forward to fetch at Wanmeeting."

So they disputed at large. Isoult made out that Galors had raised a company of outlaws (no hard job in Morgraunt at any time, and raised for her ravishment, if she had known it), and was bound for Goltres, where there was a castle, and a lord of it named Spiridion. She could find out little more. Sometimes they spoke of Hauterive town and a castle there, sometimes of Wanmeeting and a high bailiff; but Goltres seemed most in Galors' mind.

Finally they took the road to Wanmeeting. Isoult waited till the sound of the horses died in the swishing of trees, and then sped forward on her feet towards her lord. She knew she was near by, and would not risk time or discovery by catching her pony. By four in the afternoon she had her first view of the great castle rising stately out of the black pines and bright green of the spring foliage, warm grey in the full light of the sun, and solid as the rock it was of. In another hour she was demanding of the porter at the outer bailey Messire Prosper le Gai, in the name of his servant Roy.



CHAPTER XVII

ROY

That clear and mild evening, fluted as April by a thrush in the lilacs, Prosper and the Countess walked together on the terrace. A guard or two, pike in hand, lounged by the balustrade; the deer-hound, with his muzzle between his paws, twitched his ears or woke to snap at a fly: it seemed as if the earth, sure of the sun at last, left her conning tower with a happy sigh. It turned the Countess to a tender mood, where she suffered herself to be played upon by the season— L'ora del tempo e la dolce stagione. The spring whimpered in her blood. Prosper felt her sighing as she leaned on his arm, and made stress to amuse her, for sighs always seemed to him unhealthy. He set himself to be humorous, sang, chattered, told anecdotes, and succeeded in infecting himself first and the lady afterwards. She laughed in spite of herself, then with a good will. They both laughed together, so that the guards nudged each other. One prophesied a match of it.

"And no bad thing for High March if it were so," said the other, "and we with a man at the top. I never knew a greater-hearted lord. He is voiced like a peal of bells in a frolic."

"He's a trumpet in a charge home."

"He's first in."

"Fights like a demon."

"Snuffs blood before 'tis out of the skin."

"Ah, a great gentleman!"

"What would his age be?"

"Five-and-twenty, not an ounce more. So ho! What's this on the road?"

The other man looked up, both looked together. The porter came on to the terrace, followed by a dark youth who walked with a limp.

"A boy to speak with Messire," said the porter, and left his convoy.

"Name and business?" asked one of the guards.

"Roy, the page from Starning, to speak with my lord."

"Wait you there, Roy. I will ask for you."

The guard went off whistling. Isoult fixed long looks again on the two at the end of the terrace. She was nearly done,

"You have made a push for it, my shaver," said the second guard, after a study from head to toe.

"My business pushed me."

"Ah, trouble in the forest, eh? Are the roads clear?"

"I met with a company."

"How many pikes?"

"Nearer sixty than fifty."

"Where bound?"

"Goltres, I understood."

"Who led?"

"A black knight."

"Ah. Were you mounted, my lad?"

"Not then. I was in hiding."

"Ah. You know what you're about, it seems."

"Yes," said Isoult.

The messenger returned.

"You are to go and speak to Messire," he said.

Isoult saw Prosper coming towards her. Her heart's trouble began; her knees knocked together, she swayed a little as she walked.

"That boy's had as much as he can stand," said the guard who had questioned.

"What, a'ready?" laughed his mate.

"Not beer, you fool—travel. He's extended—he will hardly reach another yard."

The fact was wholly, the reasoning partly true. Doubt had lain as dregs at the bottom of the draught which had fed her. Now she was at the lees—brought so low that she had to depend upon the worth of her news for assurance of a hearing. True, she had asked no more, nor looked for it—but you cannot tame hopes. A dry patch in her throat burned like fire, but she fought her way. He was close: she could see the keen light in his eyes. Alas! alas! he looked for Roy. A thick tide of despair came surging over her, closing in, beating at her temples for entrance. She lost her sight, fluttered a very rag in the wind, held out her hands for a balance. Prosper saw her feeling about like a blind man. He quickened.

"Danger! danger!" she breathed, and fell at his feet.

He picked her up as if she had been a baby and carried her into the house. As he passed the guards one of them came forward to help.

"The lad's been pushed beyond his strength, my lord," the man ventured.

"So I see," said Prosper, and shook him off. The business must be got through alone.

"A great gentleman," said the man to his mate. "But he fags his servants."

"Bless you, Jack, they like it!" the other assured him, with a laugh at the weakness of his own kind.

Wine on her lips and brows brought her to, but it was a ghost of a boy that lay on the bed and held fixed upon Prosper a pair of haunted eyes. But Prosper stayed at his post. He was very tender to weak things. Here in all conscience was a weak thing! That look of hers, which never wavered for a second, frightened him. He thought she was going to die; reflected that death was not safe without a priest: the thought of death suggested his dream, the dream his old curiosity to see again that which had so stirred him asleep. Well, here she was before him—part of her at least; for her soul, which he had helped her to win, was fighting to escape. The sounds of the duel, the shuddering reluctance of the indrawn breath, the moan that told of its enlargement, these things, and the motionless open eyes which seemed to say, Look! Body and soul are fighting, and we can only watch! turned him helpless, as we all are in actual audience of death. He sat, therefore, waiting the issue; and if he had any thought at all it was, "God, she was mine once, and now I have let her go!" For we do not pity the dying or dead; but ourselves we pity, who suffer longer and more than they.

Presently Isoult fetched a long sigh, and moved a hand ever so slightly. Prosper took it, leaning over her.

"Isoult," he said, "child, do you not know me?"

He affected more roughness than he felt, as a man's way is. He will always dictate rather than ask. At his words a shiny veil seemed to withdraw from her eyes, whereby he learned that she had heard him. He put the cup to her lips again. Some was spilt, but some was swallowed.

She motioned an answer to his question. "Yes, lord," he made of it.

"Isoult, I ought to be angry with you," said he; and she looked untroubled at him, too far gone to heed the blame of lords or men.