MARTIN VALLIANT

MARTIN VALLIANT

By

WARWICK DEEPING

Author of “Sorrell and Son”

ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY

New York

MARTIN VALLIANT

BY WARWICK DEEPING

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES

OF AMERICA

FIRST EDITION

MARTIN VALLIANT

Chapter I

Brother Geraint pulled his black cowl forward over his head, and stepped out into the porch. Some one thrust the door to behind him, and there was the sound of an oak bar being dropped into the slots.

A full moon stared at Brother Geraint over the top of a thorn hedge. He stood there for a while in the deep shadow, licking his lips, and listening.

Somewhere down the valley a dog was baying the moon, a little trickle of discord running through the supreme silence of the night. Brother Geraint tucked his hands into his sleeves, grinned at the moon, and started down the path with his shadow following at his heels. He loitered a moment at the gate, glancing back over his shoulder at the house that blinked never a light at him, but stood solid and black and silent in the thick of a smother of apple trees.

The man at the gate nodded his head gloatingly.

“Peace be with you.”

He gave a self-pleased, triumphant snuffle, swung the gate open, glanced up and down the path that crossed the meadows, and then turned homewards through the moonlight.

In Orchard Valley the dew lay like silver samite on the grass, and the boughs of the apple trees were white as snow. Between the willows the Rondel river ran toward the sea, sleek and still and glassy, save where it thundered over the weir beside the prior’s mill. The bell-tower of Paradise cut the northern sky into two steel-bright halves. Over yonder beyond the river the Forest held up a cloak of mystery across the west. Its great beech trees were glimmering into green splendor and lifting a thousand crowded domes against the brilliance of the moon.

Brother Geraint had no care for any of these things. He swung along toward Paradise like a dog returning from an adventure, his fat chin showing white under his cowl, his arms folded across his chest. The cluster of hovels and cottages that stretched between the river and the priory gate was discreetly dark and silent, with no Peeping Tom to watch the devout figure moving between the hedges and under the orchard trees. Paradise slept peacefully in its valley, and left the ordering of things spiritual to St. Benedict.

The priory, lying there in the midst of the smooth meadows, looked white and chaste and very beautiful. The night was so still that even the aspen trees that sheltered it on the north would not have fluttered their leaves had the month been June. The gold weathercock at the top of the flèche glittered in the moonlight. The bell-tower, with its four pinnacles, seemed up among the stars. Sanctity, calm, devout splendor! And yet the gargoyles ranged below the battlements of the gate opened their black mouths with a suggestion of obscene and gloating laughter. It was as though they hailed Brother Geraint as a boon comrade, a human hungry creature with wanton eyes and scoffing lips:

“Ho, you sly sinner! Hallo, you dog!”

The black holes in the stone masks up above mouthed at him in silent exultation.

Brother Geraint did not make his entry by the great gate. There was a door in the precinct wall that opened into the kitchen court, and this door served. The monk passed along the slope under the infirmary, and so into the cloisters. He had taken off his shoes, and went noiselessly on his stockinged feet.

Suddenly he paused like a big, black, listening bird, his head on one side. For some one was chanting in the priory church. Geraint knew the voice, and his teeth showed in the dark slit of his mouth.

“Brre—pious bastard!”

Hate gleamed under his black cowl. He crept noiselessly up the steps that led to the doorway, and along the transept, and craning his head around the pillar of the chancel arch, looked up into the choir. The great window was lit by the moon, its tracery dead black in a sheet of silver. The light shone on the lower half of Brother Geraint’s face, but his eyes were in the shadow.

A man was kneeling in one of the choir stalls, a young man with his hood turned back and his hair shining like golden wire. He knelt very straight and erect, his head thrown back, his arms folded over his chest. He had ceased his chanting, and his eyes seemed to be looking at something a long way off.

There was a grotesque and ferocious sneer on Brother Geraint’s face. Then his lips moved silently. He was speaking to his own heart.

“How bold the whelp is before God! A bladder of lard hung up in a shop could not look more innocent. Innocent! Damnation! This bit of green pork needs curing.”

He nodded his head significantly at the man in the choir, and crept back out of the church. In going from the cloisters toward the prior’s house he met a little old fellow carrying a leather bottle, and walking with his head thrust forward as though he were in a hurry.

“God’s speed, brother.”

They stood close together under the wall, leering at each other in the darkness.

“Is the prior abed yet?”

The little man held up the bottle.

“I have just been filling his jack for him.”

“Empty, is it?”

“Try, brother.”

Geraint took the bottle and drank.

“Burgundy.”

He licked his lips.

“Ale is all very well, Holt, but a stomachful of this red stuff is good after a night of prayer.”

The little man sniggered, and nodded his head.

“Warms up the blood again. Ssst—listen to that young dog yelping.”

They could hear Brother Martin chanting in the choir. Geraint’s hand shot out and gripped the cellarer’s shoulder.

“Assuredly you love him, friend Holt. Why, the young man is a saint; he brings us glory and reputation.”

“Stuffed glory and geese!”

Holt mouthed and jiggered like an angry ape.

“It was a bad day for us when old Valliant renounced the devil and dedicated his bastard to God. Why, the young hound is getting too big for his kennel.”

“Even preaches against the leather jack, my friend!”

“Aye, more than that. Sniffing at older men’s heels, hunting them when they go a-hunting.”

Geraint laughed.

“We’ll find a cure for that. He shall be one of us before Abbot Hilary comes poking his holy nose into Paradise. Why, the young fool is green as grass, but there must be some of old Valliant’s blood in him.”

“The blood of Simon Zelotes.”

“We shall see, Holt; we shall see.”

The prior’s parlor was a noble room carried upon arches, its three windows looking out on the prior’s garden and the fruit trees of the orchard. A roofed staircase, the roof carried by carved stone balustrades, led up to the vestibule. Geraint, still carrying his shoes, went up the stairway with the briskness of a man who did not vex his soul with ceremonious deliberations. Nor did he trouble to rap on the prior’s door, but thrust it open and walked in.

An old man was sitting in an oak chair before the fire, his paunch making a very visible outline, his feet cocked up so that their soles caught the blaze. His lower lip hung querulously. His bold, high forehead glistened in the fire-light, and his rather protuberant blue eyes had a bemused, dull look.

He turned, glanced at Brother Geraint, and grunted.

“So you are not abed.”

“No, I am here—as you see.”

“Shut the door, brother. What a man it is for draughts and windy adventures!”

Geraint closed the door, and throwing back his cowl, pulled a stool up to the fire. He was a lusty, lean, big-jawed creature, as unlike Prior Globulus as an eagle is unlike a fat farmyard cock. His eyes were restless and very shrewd. The backs of his hands were covered with black hair, and one guessed that his chest was like the chest of an ape. He had a trick of moistening his lower lip with his tongue, a big red lip that jutted out like the spout of a jug.

“It is passing cold, sir, when a man has to walk without his shoes.”

He thrust his gray-stockinged feet close to the fire.

“You observe, sir, I am a careful man. Our young house-dog is awake.”

He watched Prior Globulus with shrewd, sidelong attention; but the old man lay inert in his chair and blinked at the fire.

“Brother Martin is very careful for our reputation, sir. He has become the thorn in our mortal flesh. It is notorious that he eschews wine, fasts like a saint, and has no eyes or ears for anything that is carnal—save, sir, when he discovers such frailties in others.”

The prior turned on Geraint with peevish impatience.

“A pest on the fellow; he is no more than a vexatious fool. Let him be, brother.”

Geraint leaned forward and spread his hands before the fire.

“Brother Martin is no fool, sir; I am beginning to believe that the fellow is very sly. He watches and says but little, yet there is a something in those eyes of his. He lives like a fanatic, while we, sir, are but mortal men.”

He smiled and rubbed his hands together.

“As you know, sir, it was mooted that Abbot Hilary has his eyes on Paradise. Some one whispered shame of us, and Abbot Hilary is the devil.”

Prior Globulus sat up straight in his chair, his face full of querulous anger and dismay.

“Foul lies, brother.”

“Foul lies, sir.”

Geraint’s voice was ironical. His eyes met the older man’s, and Prior Globulus could not meet the look.

“Well, well,” and he grinned peevishly. “What does your wisdom say, my brother?”

Geraint edged his stool a little closer.

“Brother Martin must be taught to be mortal,” he said; “he must become one of us.”

“And how shall that befall?”

“I will tell you, sir. Is not the fellow old Valliant’s son—old Valliant whose blood was like Spanish wine? Brother Martin is a young man, and the spring is here.”

They talked together for a long while before the fire, their heads almost touching, their eyes watching the flames playing in the throat of the chimney.

Chapter II

White mist filled the valley, for there was no wind moving, and the night had been very still. The moon had sunk into the Forest, but though the sun had not yet climbed over the edge of the day a faint yellow radiance showed in the east. As for the birds, they had begun their piping, and the whole valley was filled with a mysterious exultation.

Into this world of white mist and of song walked Brother Martin, old Roger Valliant’s son—old Valliant, the soldier of fortune who had fought for pay under all manner of kings and captains, and had come back to take his peace in England with an iron box full of silver and gold. Old Valliant was dead, with the flavor of sundry rude romances still clinging to his memory, for even when his hair was gray he had caught the eyes of the women. Then in his later years a sudden devoutness had fallen upon him; there had been a toddling boy in his house and no mother to care for the child. Old Valliant had made great efforts to escape the devil; that was what his neighbors had said of him. At all events, he had left the child and his money to the monks of Paradise, and had made a most comely and tranquil end.

Brother Martin was three-and-twenty, and the tallest man in Orchard Valley. The women whispered that it was a pity that such a man should be a monk and take his state so seriously. There was a tinge of red in his hair; his blue eyes looked at life with a bold mildness; men said that he was built more finely than his father, and old Valliant had been a mighty man-at-arms. Yet Brother Martin often had the look of a dreamer, though his flesh was so rich and admirable in its youth. He loved the forest, he loved the soft meadows and the orchards, the path beside the river where the willows trailed their branches in the water, his stall in the choir, the mill where the wheel thundered. The children could not let him be when he walked through the village. As for the white pigeons in the priory dovecot, they would perch on his hands and shoulders. And yet there was a mild severity about the man, a clear-sighted and unfoolish chastity that brooked no meanness. He was awake even though he could dream. He had had his wrestling matches with the devil.

Brother Martin went down to the river that May morning, stripped himself, piled his clothes on the trunk of a fallen pollard willow, and took his swim. He let himself drift within ten yards of the weir, and then struck back against the swiftly gliding water. There had been heavy rains on the Forest ridge, and the Rondel was running fast—so fast that Martin had to fight hard to make headway against the stream. The youth in him had challenged the river; it was a favorite trick of his to let himself be carried close to the weir and then to fight back against the suck of the water.

And a woman was watching him. She had been standing all the while under a willow, leaning her body against the trunk of the tree, her gray cloak and hood part of the grayness of the dawn. Nothing could be seen of her face save the white curve of her chin. She kept absolutely still, so still that Martin did not notice her.

The Rondel river gave Martin a fair fight that morning. All his litheness and his strength were needed in the tussle; he conquered the river by inches, and drew away very slowly from the thundering weir. The woman hidden behind the willow leaned forward and watched him.

The sun had risen, a great yellow circle, when Martin reached the spot where he had left his clothes. The mist was rising, and long yellow slants of light struck the water and lined the scalloped ripples with gold. The water was very black under the near bank, and as Martin climbed out, holding to the trailing branches of a willow, he saw the dew-wet meadows shining like a sheet of silver. The birds were still exulting. The sunlight struck his dripping body and made it gleam like the body of a god.

Martin had frocked himself and was knotting his girdle when he heard the woman speak.

“Oh, Mother Mary, but I thought death had you!” She threw herself on her knees and seized one of his hands in both of hers. “The saints be thanked, holy father; but we in Paradise would be wrath with you for thinking so little of us.”

Martin stared at her, and in his astonishment he suffered her to keep a hold upon his hand. Her hood had fallen back, and showed her ripe, audacious face, and her black-brown eyes that were full of a seeming innocence. Her hair was the color of polished bronze, and her teeth very white behind her soft, red lips.

“What are you doing here, child?”

He was austere, yet gentle, and strangely unembarrassed. The girl was a ward of Widow Greensleeve’s, of Cherry Acre.

She made a show of confusion.

“I was out to gather herbs, holy father—herbs that must have the dew on them—and I saw you struggling in the river—and was afraid.”

He smiled at her, and withdrew his hand.

“I thank you for your fear, child.”

“Sir, you are so well loved in the valley.”

She stood up, smoothing her gown, and looking shyly at the grass.

“You are not angry with me, Father Martin?”

“How should I be angry?”

“In truth, but my fear for you ran away with me.”

She gave him a quick and eloquent flash of the eyes, and turned to go.

“I must gather my herbs, holy father.”

“Peace be with you,” he said simply.

Martin went on his way, as though nothing singular had happened. The girl loitered under the willows, looking back at him with mischievous curiosity. He was very innocent, but somehow she liked him none the less for that.

“Maybe it is very pleasant to be so saintly,” she said; “yet he is a fine figure of a man. I wonder how long it will be before Father Satan comes stalking across the meadows.”

Kate Succory made a pretense of searching for herbs, so ordering her steps that she found herself on the path that led to the house at Cherry Acre. The path ran between high hawthorn hedges that sheltered the orchards, and since the hedges were in green leaf, the way was like a narrow winding alley between high walls. She did not hurry herself, and presently she heard some one following her along the path.

“Good-morrow, Kate.”

She halted and turned a mock-demure face.

“Good-morrow, holy father.”

Geraint was grinning under his cowl.

“You are up betimes, sweeting.”

She walked on with a shrug of the shoulders.

“I have been gathering herbs, and I have the cow to milk.”

“Excellent maid. And nothing wonderful has happened to you?”

“Oh, I have fallen in love with some one,” she said tartly; “it is a girl’s business to fall in love.”

Geraint sniggered.

“I commend such humanity.”

“It is not with you, holy father. Do not flatter yourself as to that.”

She tossed her head, and walked daintily, swinging her shoulders. And Geraint looked at her brown neck, and opened and shut his hairy hands.

“Perhaps Dame Greensleeve will give me a cup of hot milk?” he said.

“Oh, to be sure.”

And she began to whistle like a boy.

Brother Martin was a mile away, brushing his feet through the dew of the upland meadows. He had crossed the footbridge at the mill, and spoken a few words with Gregory, the miller, who had thrust a shock of sandy hair out of an upper window. Rising like a black mound on the edge of the Forest purlieus stood a grove of yews, and it was toward these yews that Martin’s footsteps tended.

The yews were very ancient, with huge red-black trunks and dense green spires crowded together against the blue. No grass grew under them, for the great trees starved all other growth and cheated it of sunlight. A path cut its way through the solemn gloom, but the yew boughs met overhead.

And yet there was life in the midst of this black wood, life that was grotesque and piteous. The path broadened to a spacious glade, and in the glade stood a little rude stone house thatched with heather. The dwellers here labored with their hands, for a great part of the glade was cultivated, and about the house itself were borders of herbs, roses, and flowering plants. A couple of goats were browsing outside the wattle fence that closed in the garden, and a blue pigeon strutted and cooed to its mate on the roof ridge of the house.

Martin stopped at the swinging hurdle that served as a gate. A man was hoeing between the rows of broad beans, an old man to judge by the stoop of his shoulders and the slow and careful way he used the hoe. He wore a coarse white smock with a hood to it; a kind of linen mask covered his face.

“You are working early, Master Christopher.”

The man turned and straightened himself with curious deliberation. There was something ghastly about that white mask of his with its two black slits for eye-holes. He looked more like a piece of mummery than a man, a grotesque figure in some rustic play.

He lifted up a cracked voice and shouted:

“Giles, Peter—Brother Martin is at the gate.”

Two be-cowled and masked creatures came out of the house. All three were so alike and so much of a size that a stranger would not have told one from the other. They formed themselves into a kind of procession, and shuffling to the gate, knelt down on a patch of grass inside it.

Martin’s voice was very gentle.

“Shall I chant the Mass, brothers?”

The three lepers looked at him like lost souls gazing at Christ.

“The Lord be merciful to us and cast His blessing upon you,” said one of them.

So Martin chanted the Mass.

The three bowed their heads before him, as though it gave them joy to listen to the sound of his voice, for Martin chanted like a priest and a soldier and a woman all in one. He had no fear of these poor creatures, did not shrink from them and hold aloof. When he brought them the Sacrament he did not pass God’s body through a hole in the wall. The birds had ceased their singing, and the world was very still, and Martin’s voice went up to heaven with a strong and valiant tenderness.

When he had ended the Mass the three lepers got up off their knees and began to talk like children.

“Can you smell my gillyflowers, Brother Martin?”

“The speckled hen has hatched out twelve chicks.”

“You should see what Peter has been making; three maple cups all polished like glass.”

“If the Lord keeps the frosts away there will be a power of fruit on the trees.”

Martin opened the gate and walked into the garden, and the three followed him as though he had come straight out of heaven. No other living soul ever came nearer than the place where the path entered the yew wood. Alms were left there, and such goods as the lepers could buy. But Brother Martin had no fear of the horror that had fallen on them, and had such a fear shown itself he would have crushed it out of his heart. And so he had to see and smell Christopher’s gillyflowers, handle the speckled hen’s chicks, and admire the maple cups that Peter had made. Nature was beautiful and clean even though she had cast a foul blight upon these three poor creatures. They hung upon Martin’s words, watched him with a kind of timid devotion. God walked with them in that lonely place when Brother Martin came from Paradise and through the wood of yews.

Meanwhile, Brother Geraint had followed Kate Succory to Widow Greensleeve’s house in Cherry Acre, where the maze of high hedges and orchard trees hid his black frock completely. The girl had gone a-milking, and Brother Geraint had certain things to say to the widow. He sat on a settle in the kitchen, and she moved to and fro before him, a big breeze of a woman, plump, voluble, very rosy, with roguish eyes and an incipient double chin. She laughed a great deal, nodded her head at him, and snapped her fingers, for she and Brother Geraint understood each other.

“Kate will dance to that tune. Bless me, she’ll need no persuading.”

Geraint spoke very solemnly.

“If she can cure the young man of his self-righteousness she shall be well remembered by us all. See to it, dame.”

The widow curtsied, making a capacious lap.

“Your servant, holy father.”

And then she fell a-laughing in a sly, shrewd way.

“God be merciful to us, my friend; yet I do believe that it is more pleasant to live with sinners than with saints. The over-pious man rides the poor ass to death. Now you—my friend——”

She laughed so that her bosom shook.

“We would all confess to Brother Geraint. I know the kind of penance that you would set me, good sir.”

Geraint got up and kissed her, and her brown eyes challenged his.

“Leave it to me,” she said; “I will physic the young man for you.”

Chapter III

Martin had gone down the valley to watch the woodmen felling oaks in the Prior’s Wood when old Holt rode out on a mule in search of him. He found Martin stripped like the men and working with them, for he loved laboring with his hands.

“Brother Martin—Brother Martin!”

Old Holt squeaked at him imperiously.

“Brother Martin, a word with you.”

Martin passed the felling ax that he had been swinging to one of the men, and crossed over to Father Holt.

“The prior has been asking for you. Get you back at once. Brother Jude has been taken sick, and is lying in the infirmary.”

Martin glanced up at old Holt’s wrinkled, crab-apple of a face.

“Who has gone to the Black Moor in Jude’s place?”

“I did not ride here to gossip, brother. See to it that you make haste home.”

Martin let old Holt’s testiness fly over his shoulders, and went and put on his black frock. The cellarer pushed his mule deeper into the wood where the men were barking one of the fallen trees, and Martin left him there and started alone for Paradise. The great oaks were just coming into leaf, the golden buds opening against the blue of the sky. The young bracken fronds were uncurling themselves from the brown tangle of last year’s growth, and here and there masses of wild hyacinth made pools of blue. The gorse had begun to burn with a lessened splendor, but the broom had taken fire, and waved its yellow torches everywhere.

Martin found Prior Globulus in his parlor, sitting by a window with a book in his lap. The prior had been dozing; his eyes looked misty and dull.

“You have sent for me, sir.”

“Come you here, Brother Martin. Assuredly—I have been asleep. Yes—I remember. Brother Jude has been taken sick. He rode in two hours ago, with a sharp fever. I have chosen you to take his place, my son.”

His dull eyes watched Martin’s face.

“The chapel on the Black Moor must have a priest. There are people, my son, who would not pardon us if we left that altar unserved even for a day. Get you a mule and ride there. To-morrow I will send two pack mules with food and wine and new altar cloths and vestments. No cell of ours shall be served in niggardly fashion. And remember, my son, that it is part of our trust to serve all wayfarers with bread and wine, should they ask for bread and wine. Holy St. Florence so ordered it before she died. And there is the little hostelry where wayfarers may lodge themselves for the night. All these matters will be in your keeping.”

He groped in a gypsire that lay on the window seat.

“Here is the key of the chapel, Brother Martin. Now speed you, and bear my blessing.”

Martin kissed the ring on the old man’s hand, and went forth to take up his trust.

The Forest was the great lord of all those parts. From Gawdy Town, by the sea, to Merlin Water it stretched ten leagues or more, a green, rolling wilderness, very mysterious and very beautiful. There were castles, little towns and villages hidden in it, and a stranger might never have known of them but for the sound of their bells. In the north the Great Ridge bounded the Forest like a huge vallum, and on one of the chalk hills stood Troy Castle, its towers gray against the northern sky. Gawdy Town, where the Rondel river reached the sea, held itself in no small esteem. It was a free town, boasted its own mayor and jurats, appointed its own port reeve, sent out its own ships, and hoarded much rich merchandise in its storehouses and cellars.

The day had an April waywardness when Martin mounted his mule and set out for the Black Moor. Masses of cloud moved across the sky, some of them trailing rain showers from the edges, and letting in wet floods of sunlight when they had passed. The Forest was just breaking into leaf; the birch trees had clothed themselves; so had the hazels; the beeches were greener than the oaks, whose domes varied from yellow to bronze; the ash buds were still black, promising a good season. The wild cherries were in flower. The hollies glistened after the rain, and the warm, wet smell of the earth was the smell of spring.

Not till Martin reached Heron Hill did the Forest show itself to him in all its mystery. The Black Moor hung like a thunder-cloud ahead of him, splashed to the south with sunlight after the passing of a shower. He could see the sea, covered with purple shadows and patches of gold. Below him, and stretching for miles, the wet green of the woods lost itself in a blue gray haze, with the Rondel river a silver streak in the valleys. Here and there a wood of yews or firs made a blackness in the thick of the lighter foliage. Martin saw deer moving along the edge of Mogry Heath. Larks were in the air, and the green woodpecker laughed in the woods.

The sun was low in the west when the mule plodded up the sandy track that led over the Black Moor. The gorse had lost its freshness, but the yellow broom and the white of the stunted thorns lightened the heavy green of the heather. The chapelry stood on the top-most swell of the moor, marked by a big oak wayside cross, its heather-thatched roofs clustering close together like sheep in a pen. There were a chapel, a priest’s cell, a little guest-house, a stable, a small lodge or barn, and a stack of fagots standing together in a grassy space. Father Jude was a homely soul, a man of the soil; he had fought with the sour soil, made a small garden, and hedged it with thorns, though the apple trees that he had planted were all blown one way and looked stunted and grotesque. He had cut and stacked bracken for litter, and there was a small haystack in the hollow over the hill.

Martin stabled the mule, carried his saddle-bags into the cell, and took stock of his new home. He went first to the little chapel, unlocked the door, and saw that the holy vessels were safe in the aumbry beside the altar, and that no one had been tampering with the iron-bound alms-box that was fastened to the wall close to the holy water stoup. The chapel pleased him with its stone walls and the rough forest-hewn timber in its roof. He knelt down in front of the altar and prayed that in his lonely place he might not be found wanting.

There was the mule to be watered and fed, and Martin saw to the beast before he thought of his own supper. Father Jude’s larder suggested to him that hunger was an excellent necessity. He found a stale loaf of bread, a big earthen jar full of salted meat, half a bowl of herrings, a pot of honey, a paper of spices, and the remains of a rabbit pie. Obviously Father Jude had been something of a cook, and Martin stared reflectively at the brick oven in the corner of the cell. Cooking was an art that he had not studied, but on the top of the Black Moor a man had a chance of completing a thoroughly practical education. For instance, there was the question of bread. How much yeast went to how much flour, and how long had the loaves to be left in the oven? Martin saw that life was full of housewifely problems. A man’s body might be more importunate than his soul.

When he had made a meal and washed his hollywood cup and platter, he found that dusk was falling over the Forest like a purple veil. The wayside cross spread its black arms against a saffron afterglow. The world was very peaceful and very still, and a heavy dew was falling.

Martin went and sat at the foot of the cross, leaning his broad back against the massive post. His face grew dim in the dusk, and a kind of a sadness descended on him. There were times when a strange unrest stirred in him, when he yearned for something—he knew not what. The beauty of the earth, the wet scent of the woods, the singing of birds filled him with a vague emotion that was near to pain. It was like the spring stirring in his blood while a wind still blew keenly out of the north.

But Martin Valliant’s faith was very simple as yet, and crowned with a tender severity.

“The Devil goeth about cunningly to tempt men.”

His thoughts wandered back to Paradise, and set him frowning. He was not so young as not to know that all was not well with the world down yonder.

“Our Lord was tempted in the wilderness.”

He stared up at the stars, and then watched the yellow face of the moon rise over Heron Hill.

“It is good for a man to be alone, to keep watch and to know his own heart. God does nothing blindly. When we are alone we are both very weak and very strong. There are voices that speak in the wilderness.”

He felt comforted, and a great calm descended on him. Those taunting lights had died out of the western sky; the beauty of the earth no longer looked slantwise at him like a young girl whose eyes are tender and whose breasts are the breasts of a woman.

The pallet bed in the cell had a mattress of sacking filled with straw. It served Martin well enough. He slept soundly and without dreams.

But at Paradise Geraint had gone a-prowling through the orchards. He loitered outside Widow Greensleeve’s gate till some one came out with smothered laughter and spoke to him under the apple boughs.

“The pan is on the fire, dame. Brother Martin has gone to the Black Moor.”

“And the fat is ready for frying, my master.”

“A few pinches of spice—eh!”

“And a pretty dish fit for a king.”

Chapter IV

A tall ship, the Rose, came footing it toward Gawdy Town with a wash of foam at her bluff bows, and the green seas lifting her poop. Gawdy Town was very proud of the Rose, for she was fit to be a king’s ship, and to carry an admiral’s flag if needs be. Her towering poop and forecastle had their walls pierced for guns, and their little turrets loopholed for archers, and all her top gear was painted to match her name. She carried three masts and a fine spread of canvas, and Master Hamden, her captain, loved to come into port with streamers flying and all the gilding of her vanes and bulwarks shining like gold.

The Rose struck her canvas and dropped her tow ropes when she was under the shelter of the high ground west of the harbor. A couple of galleys came out to tow her in, and she was berthed at the Great Wharf under the walls.

She carried merchandise and wine from Spain and Bordeaux, also a few passengers; but the passengers were of small account. Two of them, a girl and a young man, were leaning over the poop rail and watching the people on the wharf below. The young man’s face was yellow as a guinea; he was dressed like a strolling player, with bunches of ribbons at his elbows and bells in his cap. The girl looked the taller of the two, perhaps because the sea had not humbled her; she wore a light blue coat edged with fur, and a gown of apple green; her green hood had white strings tied under her chin.

“Holy saints, what an adventure!”

The man straightened himself, and managed to smile.

“I never knew what cowardice was like till I got aboard a ship. My courage came out of my mouth. And now an impudent tongue and a laughing eye are necessities——”

The girl’s dark eyes were on the alert.

“There’s old Adam Rick, or am I blind?”

“Master Port Reeve—so it is! The bridge is ashore. We had best be putting our fortune to the test. Have I anything of the gay devil left about me?”

He shook himself with the air of a bird that had been moping on a perch, but the girl did not laugh; she held her head high, and seemed to take life with fierce seriousness.

They climbed down to the waist of the ship where Master Hamden stood by the gangway, talking to some of the fathers of Gawdy Town who were gathered on the wharf.

“News, sirs, what would you with news? If Crookback is still king, I have no news for you.”

“There have been rumors of landings.”

“Rumors of old wives’ petticoats!”

The man and the girl were close at his elbow, ready to leave the ship. The man carried a leather-covered casket in one hand, and a viol under his arm, while the girl carried a lute. She kept her eyes fixed on the tower of the town church; they were very dark eyes, blue almost to blackness, her skin was softly browned like the skin of a Frenchwoman, but her lips were very red. The hair under her hood was the color of charcoal. Her attitude toward her neighbors seemed one of aloofness; men might have voted her a proud, fierce-tempered wench.

Master Hamden looked at the pair with his red-lidded, angry eyes. The man nodded to him.

“Good-day, master.”

“Give you good-day, Jack Jester. Go and get some wine in you, and wash the yellow out of your skin.”

He looked slantwise at the girl as she passed him, but he did not speak to her. Had she been all that she pretended to be she would not have left old Hamden’s ship without a coarse jest of some kind.

Her brother was pushing his way toward a handsome, ruddy man in a black camlet cloak, and the man in the cloak was eying him intently.

“Sir Adam, a word with you.”

The Port Reeve appeared lost in thought. He drew a quill from his girdle, and meditated while he picked his teeth. And very much at his leisure, he chose to notice the young man with the viol.

“Where have you come from, my friend?”

“France, sir. My sister and I are poor players, makers of music.”

The Port Reeve scanned the pair with intelligent brown eyes.

“Queer that such a Jack and Jill should come out of France.”

“We were in the service of my Lord of Dunster.”

“And he sent you packing? How are you called?”

The young man answered in a low voice:

“Lambert Lovel.”

The Port Reeve’s eyelids flickered curiously.

“You would lodge in Gawdy Town?”

“If it pleases you, sir.”

“Our laws are strict against vagabonds and strollers. Well, get you in, Lovel, my lad, and your sister with you. You make no tarrying, I gather.”

“But to make a little money for the road, sir.”

“Well, try the ‘Painted Lady,’ my man. It is the merchants’ tavern.”

He gave them something very like a solemn wink, and then turned aside to talk to a sea-captain who wanted to quarrel about the port dues.

The strolling singers entered Gawdy Town by the sea-gate, and chose a winding street that went up toward the castle. Lambert carried himself with a jaunty and half-insolent air, fluttering his ribbons and making grimaces at the people in the doorways.

“Do you remember your name, sweeting?”

“Am I a fool, Gilbert!”

“God save us,” and he glanced at her impatiently, “but you have forgotten mine! Lambert Lovel, brother to Kate Lovel. Be wary; the Crookback has spies in every port.”

“Why stay in the town—at all?”

“Oh, you wild falcon! Are there not things to be done here? Are we not hungry? Besides, the Forest is seven miles away.”

“I know—but it is home.”

Her brother laughed. He was built on lighter, gayer lines than the girl; he had not her strength. A sort of adventurous vanity carried him along, and life pleased him when it was not too grim.

“Robin, sweet Robin under the greenwood tree! A pile of stones and a few burnt beams! Scramble, you brats—scramble!”

With a lordly air he pretended to throw money to a number of children who seemed inclined to follow them.

“You will have to play your part, sweeting. Where the devil is that gaudy inn? Ha! we have it!”

A broad square paved with cobbles opened in front of them, its timber and plaster houses built out on brackets and pillars, many of them carrying painted signs hung out on poles. A stone cross stood in the center of the square, and above the lichened roof of the town hall the great round tower of the castle showed like a crown resting on a cushion. The “Inn of the Painted Lady” stood by the guild house of the Armourers’ Guild, a noisy, buxom, deep-chested house, its plaster-work painted green and red, its sign looking like a Roman mosaic. A white mule and a couple of palfreys were waiting outside the entry, and from an open window came the sound of some one singing:

“Cuckolds, cuckolds, list to my tale——”

It was a big, brawling voice that sang, the voice of a man who was hearty with liquor.

Lovel looked at the place a little doubtfully.

“Fat—and bountiful! I will go and beard my friend—the host.”

The girl turned aside.

“I shall be there—on the steps of the cross.”

“Be brave, sweeting.” And he went off humming a song.

He reappeared shortly with a certain whimsical look.

“You will be suffered to sleep with the sluts, Kate.”

“And you?”

“With the scullions! What men must stomach for the sake of—adventure!”

Her nostrils dilated.

“The Forest would be sweeter.”

“True, dear sister; but shall we be frightened by having to sleep on musty straw with fellow Christians who wash under the pump but once a week? I trust not. Besides, I have to see the Flemming to-night.”

Her pride was in revolt, the pride of a kestrel put to perch with flea-ridden hens.

“Had I known this I would have chosen to cross the sea in some other dress.”

Her brother shrugged his shoulders, and then sat down beside her on the stone steps of the cross.

“I’m sorry, Kate, but what would you? We have begun this game in cap and bells, and we must go through with it—or pay forfeit. And the forfeit may be our lives. Crooked Dick shows no mercy.”

He was right, and she knew it. There could be no turning back.

“What must be—must be. I shall not fail you, brother.”

“That’s brave; but one word more, Kate.”

“Speak out.”

“Your pride may be sorely touched in yonder, for you are a singing-girl, no more, no less. Take it not to heart, child, and do not let it anger you. I would stab the man who offered to do you harm, even though the dagger blow meant ruin for both of us. I, too, have my pride.”

“Those are a man’s words. You shall not be disappointed in me.”

Half an hour later Mellis Dale stood at an attic window overlooking the inn yard. She had liked the part she was playing still less when she had seen the attic, but for the moment it was empty; the wenches who were to be her bed-fellows were at their work below. She could see her brother Gilbert sitting on an overturned tub in the yard, twanging the strings of his viol, and making the ostlers and loiterers laugh with his whimsies. His color had come back to him; he was playing a man’s game, even though it brought his feet very close to the gutter.

She caught some of her brother’s spirit, some of his cynical and gay audacity. After all, they were not the sport of fools, but players who made the fools dance to their piping. Her pride caught a note of mockery. There were enemies to be outwitted; there was the thought of revenge.

The inn simmered with life like a kettle about to boil. She could feel the bubbling of its activities, the reverberations of its crude, animal energy. There was much clattering of pots and pans, and much loud talking in the kitchen. She could hear girls giggling, and a woman scolding somewhere with a voice that suggested the rending of linen. The gentleman with the big, brawling bass was still singing in the deeps of the house, and other voices took up the chorus. A knife-grinder appeared with his barrow and wheel and started to sharpen knives. Two dogs fell to fighting over a sheep’s foot that had been flung out of the kitchen. A man rolled out from the guest-room and was sick in the kennel.

Mellis saw her brother draw his bow from its case, and begin playing his viol, and the music brought six bouncing girls from somewhere, all ready to dance. They footed it up and down the yard, holding up their gowns, and laughing to each other, while the men stood around and made jests. The windows of the inn filled with faces; all sorts of unsuspected folk poked out their heads to watch the fun. This living picture-show included a little old lawyer, blue and wrinkled, with a dewdrop hanging at the end of his nose; a red-faced widow with a headdress like a steeple; a couple of priests; a vintner from London who munched something as though he were chewing the cud; a country squire with the eyes of an ox; a young bachelor who kept looking up at Mellis and showing off his slashed doublet and the jewel in his ear.

The members of one of the Merchant Guilds were supping together in the great guest-room, and servants began to go to and fro across the yard with dishes from the kitchen. Mellis saw a big man with a face as round and as sallow as a cream cheese come out and speak to her brother. Gilbert glanced up at her, and then beckoned her to come down.

She appeared in the yard, with her lute hanging from her shoulders by a cherry-colored ribbon. The man with the sallow face stared her over, and nodded his approval.

“If her voice prove as good as her face, my guests will have no cause to grumble. I will hire the two of you for the evening, for a silver groat and your suppers.”

Mellis had to suffer the insolence of the fat fellow’s eye. Her brother grimaced, and shook an empty gypsire.

“We shall not die of a surfeit of wealth.”

“Take it or leave it,” said the innkeeper roughly. “I have my choice of all the wastrels and wenches in Gawdy Town.”

Mellis’s face showed white and cold. The beast’s churlishness roused such scorn in her that she soared above such a thing as anger.

And so for two hours she stood in the guest-room of the “Painted Lady,” making music for men who over-ate and over-drank themselves, and who looked at her as none of them would have looked at their neighbors’ daughters or wives. Her scorn filled her with a kind of devilry. She sang to see what manner of swine these men were; sang to them as though each had the soul of a Dan Chaucer. And not a few of them grew very silent, and sat and stared at her with a brutish wonder. An oldish man sniveled and wept. Her brother Gilbert was kept busy scraping at the strings of his viol, and all the passage-ways were crowded with servants and scullions who crowded to listen.

“That was famous, Kate,” he said to her as he saw her safe to the stairs, “I passed around the cap and drew five pence out of the worthies.”

“I think I would sooner have sung to lost souls in Hell,” she answered him.

In the attic she stripped off her spencer and gown, and lay down on one of the straw pallets in her shift. Her bed-fellows came up anon, three rollicking girls who smelt of the kitchen.

Said one of them:

“That brother of thine is a pretty fellow. I warrant I’d tramp to Jerusalem with such a brother.”

They tittered, and squeaked like mice. Mellis sat up and looked at them by the glimmer of the rushlight.

“My dears,” she said, “I am very weary. Let me sleep. One may have to sing when one’s heart is heavy.”

And so she silenced them. They crept to bed as quietly as birds going to roost.

Chapter V

Brother Martin said matins to the sparrows who had built their nests in the thatch of the chapel, and having drunk a cup of spring water and eaten a crust of bread, he set out early to try to lose himself in the Forest.

For life on the Black Moor was not all that it had seemed, and a young man, however devout and determined he may be, cannot satisfy his soul with prayers and the planting of seeds in a garden. Martin had entered upon the life with methodical enthusiasm, tolled the chapel bell at matins and vespers, swept out his cell, set the little guest-house in order, and done to death all the weeds in Father Jude’s garden. But a man must be fed, and it was in a struggle with this prime necessity that Martin suffered his first defeat. He started out cheerfully to bake bread, but the Devil was in the business; the oven was either too hot or too cold, and there were mysteries about such a simple thing as dough that Martin had not fathomed. He tore a great hole in his cassock in climbing up the woodstack to throw down fagots, and then discovered that he had no needle and thread for the mending of the rent. These trivial domestic humiliations were discouraging. He conceived a most human hatred of salt meat, herrings, and the obstinate and adhesive pulp that he produced in the place of bread. Milk and eggs, fresh meat and honey! He was carnally minded with regard to such simple desires.

Moreover, he was most abominably lonely—the more so, perhaps, because he had not realized his own loneliness. Paradise appeared to have melted into the dim distance; there might have been a conspiracy against him; Martin had not seen a human face since Prior Globulus had sent a servant to fetch away the mule, on the plea that the beast was needed. And Martin had taken the loss of the mule most unkindly. It was a confession, but he had found the beast good company; it had been alive; it had needed food and drink; had given signs of friendship; had been a warm, live thing that he could touch. The birds were very well in their way; but he was not necessary to them, and they were wild. He saw deer moving in the distance, but they were no more than the figures of beasts worked in thread upon a tapestry.

This morning restlessness of his was a kind of impulsive pilgrimage in quest of something that he lacked—a flight from that part of himself that remained unsatisfied. He went striding over the heather toward the beech woods in the valley. They were very green, and soft, and beautiful and had seemed mysteriously alive when seen from the brow of the Black Moor, but even in the woods some essential thing was lacking. The great trees stood spaced at a distance, their branches rising from the huge gray trunks. The greenness and the listening gloom went on and on, promising him something that was never seen, never discovered.

More than once he came on an open glade where rabbits were feeding, and the little brown fellows went off at a scamper, showing the whites of their tails. Martin felt aggrieved, even like a child who wanted playmates. He leaned against a beech tree and consoled himself with asking ridiculous questions.

“Why should the beasts fear man?”

And yet he would have welcomed fresh venison!

“If the Lord Christ were here in my place, would not all the wild things come to Him?”

His simple faith could provide him with only one answer, and that was not flattering to his self-knowledge. He had not climbed to that state of complete purity; he was no St. Francis. Perhaps Original Sin was at the bottom of everything. And yet he had always mastered his own body.

Martin Valliant passed some hours in the woods before turning back across the heather of the Black Moor. A hawk, poised against the blue, took no more notice of him than if he had been a sheep, and for a while Martin stood watching the bird of prey. The hawk went boldly on with his hunting; he would have had no pity for a poor fool of a priest who was spending his powers in trying to contradict Nature.

A puzzled look came into Martin Valliant’s eyes as he neared the chapelry. A little tuft of smoke was drifting from the chimney of his cell, and he knew that he had lit no sticks under the oven that morning.

“They have sent a servant from Paradise.”

He quickened his steps, but saw no live thing moving about the place. He looked into the stable, and found it empty; but the garden hedge offered him his first surprise. Certainly the thing that he saw was nothing but a shirt spread on the hedge to dry, and looking as white and clean as one of the big clouds overhead.

His own cell offered further mysteries. The oven door stood open, and a couple of nicely browned loaves were waiting to be taken out. A meat pasty that smelled very fragrant had been left on the oven shelf. His cassock, neatly mended, hung over the back of Father Jude’s oak chair.

Martin could make nothing of these mysteries. The loaves and the pasty were real enough—so real that he remembered the cup of water and the crust of bread with which he had broken his fast soon after dawn.

He went and looked into the chapel and the guest-room, but there was no one there, nor could he see anything moving over the moor. The business puzzled him completely. It was possible that a servant had been sent from Paradise; but Paradise was three leagues away, and Martin would have expected to find a horse or a mule in the stable. Moreover it occurred to him that some one must have looked into the oven not so very long ago, lifted out the pasty, and put it on the shelf. The good creature might be hiding somewhere, but what need was there for such a game of hide-and-seek?

Martin returned to the cell, set the pasty on the table, took the loaves out of the oven, and his platter and cup from the shelf. Common sense suggested that the food was meant to be eaten. He pulled the stool up to the table, said grace, took the knife from the sheath at his girdle, and thrust the point of it through the pie-crust.

Then he sat rigid, listening, the blade of his knife still in the pie and his hand gripping the haft. Some one was singing on the moor among the yellow gorse and broom. The voice was a girl’s voice, gay and birdlike and challenging.

Martin sat there with a face like a ghost’s, his heart beating fast, his eyes staring through the open doorway. For the voice seemed to speak to him of all that he had sought in the Forest and had not found. It was youth calling to youth in the spring of the year.

The voice grew fainter and fainter; it seemed to be dying away over the moor. Martin Valliant’s eyes dilated, his knees shook together. He started up, knocking over the stool, and rushed out of the cell like a madman, his eyes full of a fanatical fire.

The voice had ceased singing. He climbed to the place where the wooden cross stood, and looked fiercely about him. But he saw nothing, nothing but the gorse and broom and heather. He went down among the green gorse banks, searched, and found nothing.

Sweat stood on his forehead, and his heart was hammering under his ribs.

Then he crossed himself, fell on his knees, and prayed. The first thing he did on reaching his cell was to take the loaves and the cooked meat and throw them into the fire under the oven.

Chapter VI

When a man has done what he believes to be a good deed he is flushed for a while with a happy self-righteousness, and may forget the struggle he had with his own soul. So it was with Martin Valliant. He had no quarrel with himself or with his loneliness for the rest of that day. He had won a victory; he had been tempted of the Devil and had refused the meats that the Devil had cooked for him.

Strange—this fear of the white body or the lips of a woman, this naïve cowardice that dares not look into Nature’s eyes. In it one beholds the despair of saints who see no hope for man save in the crushing of the body to save the soul. The few struggle toward a cold triumph, maimed, but half human. With holy ferocity they run about to persuade humanity that God is without sex. Men may listen to them; the deserts become filled with monks; Nature is flouted for a while. Then the thing becomes no more than a rotten shell; men obey their impulses but still wear their vows; cynicism and a lewd hypocrisy are born; the great realities are glozed over. Then comes the day when a more youthful and noble generation wakes to the horror of such a superstition. Gates are torn off their hinges; walls battered down; the slime and the refuse exposed to the sunlight. The new generation runs to the woods and the fields like a flock of children released from some abominable pedantry. They are no longer afraid. The world grows young and beautiful again. There is no sin in the sunset, no shame in the singing of birds.

Martin Valliant felt himself uplifted all that day; but the old Pagan people had gathered out of the woods and were lying hidden in the gorse and heather. There was Pan with his pipes; there were girls and young men who had danced in the Bacchic dances; Orpheus with his lute. Even the pale Christ looked down with compassionate eyes, the Great Lover who was human till the fanatics covered His face with a veil of lies.

Evening came, and the birds began their singing down in the beech woods under the hill. They sang their way into Martin Valliant’s heart, made him hear again the voice of the girl singing on the moor. A great restlessness assailed him. He went forth and wandered under the stars, but there was no healing for him in their cold brightness. And that night he slept like a man in fear of the dawn.

Again, it was the birds which troubled him. He woke in the gray of the morning, to hear their faint orisons filling the valley. He arose, went to the chapel, and was long at his prayers. Moreover, he chose to fast that morning, contenting himself with a cup of cold water before he wandered out over the moor.

Yet in spite of all his carefulness Martin Valliant was not wholly his own master that morning. He made himself go forward, but a part of his soul kept looking back. There was a voice, too, that challenged him. “Of what are you afraid? Why are you trying to escape? A monk is a soldier. He should fight, and not hide himself.”

This voice would not be silenced. It was like a scourge striking him continually.

“Go back,” it said; “blind men are afraid of falling.”

At last he obeyed it, vaguely conscious of the nearness of some new ordeal. He did not guess that the all-wise Mater Mundi had him by the hand, that he was one of her chosen children. She would try him with fire, teach him to be great through the power of his own compassion, so that his soul might burn more gloriously when the purer flame touched it.

Martin Valliant found the door of his cell standing open, and from within came the sound of the snapping of dry wood. A girl was kneeling by the oven, with a fagot lying on the floor at her side, and she was busy laying the fire for the baking of bread. She was dressed in a gown of apple green, and from the collar thereof her firm white neck curved to meet the bronze of her hair. So intent was she on breaking up the fagot wood and building her fire that she had not discovered the man standing in the doorway.

Life had never yet posed Martin with such a problem as this. He stood and stared at the girl, wondering how to begin the attack. Her back was turned toward him, and the initiative was his.

Then he became inspired. He would assume blindness, deafness, refuse to recognize her existence. He would not so much as speak to her, and behold! the problem would solve itself.

Kate Succory turned sharply at the sound of a man’s footsteps. Her lashes half hid her roguish brown eyes; she held a hazel bough between her two hands; her green gown, cut low at the throat, showed the upper curves of her bosom.

She saw Martin Valliant take his Mass-book from the shelf, sit down in the chair, and begin to read. He was within two yards of her, but for all the notice he took of her she might have been less than a shadow.

She watched him for some moments and then went calmly on with her work, breaking the sticks to pieces and feeding the fire. Absolute silence reigned in the cell, save for the sound of the snapping of wood and the crackling of the flames in the oven.

Martin’s eyes remained fixed on his book, but he was most acutely conscious of what was happening so close to him. The situation had taken on a sudden, unforeseen complexity. He felt himself growing hot about the face.

Presently the fire appeared to be burning to the girl’s satisfaction. She rose, went to the larder, brought out the things that she required, and set them on the table. Then she turned up the sleeves of her gown, and her arms showed white and shapely.

Martin’s face was growing the color of fire. He tried not to see the girl, to anchor his whole consciousness to the square of parchment in front of him. The dilemma shocked him. Was it possible that this creature in the green gown took his silence to be consenting?

Meanwhile she went on calmly with her work, hardly looking in his direction, her red lips parting now and again in a smile. Martin raised his eyes very cautiously and looked at her. The solid and comely reality of her shape, her purposeful composure, appalled him. This problem would have to be attacked somehow, desperately, and without delay.

The girl’s intuition forestalled his gathering effort toward revolt.

“It was foolish of you to burn those loaves yesterday.”

He stared at her with sudden, frank astonishment, but said nothing.

“Good food should not be wasted like that. Besides, I had come all that way to see what a pair of hands might do for you, Father Martin. No bread could have been cleaner; I always wash before baking.”

Here was an amazing development! The girl was actually scolding him, reproving him for being wasteful, assuming control of the stores in his cupboard. He opened his mouth to speak, but again she forestalled him.

“Father Jude was a very careful soul. Rose Lorrimer had no trouble with him; she wept her eyes out when he had to go back to Paradise. She had just made him two new shirts. And she did not mind the loneliness up here, for Father Jude is an old man, and Rose has seen forty——”

Martin Valliant laid his Mass-book on the table. Kate Succory was talking so calmly and so naturally that he knew she was to be believed; yet here was a new and astonishing phase of monastic life thrust upon him without a moment’s warning. Martin was no innocent, though he had led a sheltered life; he knew that there were monks at Paradise who had broken their vows. But here was this girl coming all the way from Paradise village and turning up her sleeves to keep house for him as though she were doing the most natural thing in the world.

He floundered in the depths of his own simplicity.

“Who sent you here, child?” he asked her bluntly.

Kate’s brown eyes met his.

“I just mounted the gray donkey and came. No one could have bidden me sweep your hearth for you. Rose Lorrimer was hearth-ward to Father Jude, and before Father Jude Father Nicholas was here, and old Marjory cared for him; but she was not old Marjory then.”

She laughed, and began to mold the dough into shape, her arms all white with flour.

“Rose took Father Jude’s sheets away with her, but if we can come by some good linen I will soon have things as they should be. Of course, if I do not please you——”

She gave him a quick, sidelong glance, her teeth showing between her red lips.

Martin Valliant had gone as white as the dough she was kneading. His knees were trembling. He could not escape from the knowledge of her green gown, her shining hair, and the sleekness of her skin. And her voice was very pleasant, with a sly lilt of playfulness and of youth in its tones.

He gripped the arms of his chair and stood up.

“My child—” he began.

She gave him the full, challenging frankness of her brown eyes, and Martin knew that he could not pretend that she was a child.

“It is very lonely here,” she said, looking at her hands, “and a man cannot do a woman’s work. Rose told me that travelers passed no more than once a month. And—and I——”

He pushed his chair back, and groped with one hand for the cross that hung at his girdle.

“It is not good that you should be here.”

He saw her head droop a little. Her hands rested on the table. He strove with himself, and went on.

“But I thank you, my sister. What I bear must be borne for the sake of the vows I have taken. When I kneel in the chapel, you shall be in my prayers.”

All the sly, provoking roguery had gone from her face. She did not speak for a moment, did not move. Then she lifted her head and looked at him, and her brown eyes were like the eyes of an animal in pain.

“I am not a bad woman, Father Martin, not evil at heart. But——”

She caught her breath, and pressed her hands to her breasts.

“Yes, I will go.”

She turned suddenly and walked straight out of the cell into the glare of the sunlight. And Martin Valliant stood biting the sleeve of his frock, and thinking of the look her brown eyes had given him.

Chapter VII

Kate Succory went no farther than the nearest cluster of gorse on the slope of the moor. She threw herself face downwards on a patch of short, sweet turf, where rabbits had been feeding, and plucked at the grass with her fingers, twisting her body to and fro with the lithe and supple movements of a restless animal. Her hair came loose, and she shook it down upon her shoulders.

There was rebellion in her eyes.

“He is a good man. Why should he not have what other men crave for? And I love him. There is not a man so tall and fine in all the Forest.”

She rested her elbows on the ground and her chin in her two hands, and stared at the gorse bushes.

“Geraint would not have hesitated. Pah! that black rat! How the girls would laugh at me! I don’t care. Why did God make him a priest?”

She frowned fiercely and bit at her lower lip, the elemental passion in her refusing to be dominated by the rules of the Church.

“He is a good man. No; I will not go away. Priestcraft is all wrong. The Lollards say so; I could argue it out with him. As if living down there in a priory made men good! Bah! what nonsense! Father Geraint is a black villain, and the rest of them are not much better. I wonder if he knows?”

A note of tenderness sounded in the turmoil of her brooding. She smiled and caressed the grass, stroking it with her open hand.

“Perhaps it would hurt him if he knew. And he was as frightened of me as though I had walked naked into the cell! Oh, my heart!”

Martin Valliant had been praying, little guessing that the days would come when he would trust to his own heart, and not be forever falling on his knees and asking strength from God. He had thrown Kate’s unbaked loaves into the fire, and made a meal from the scraps he had found in the cupboard. But he was in no mood to sit still and think. Father Jude’s spade offered itself as an honest companion, and Martin went forth into the garden to dig.

He had not turned two spadefuls of soil when Kate Succory began singing. She was sitting hidden by the gorse, her arms hugging her knees, and her voice had no note of wayward exultation. It was as though she sang to herself plaintively, like a bird bewailing its lost mate.

Martin frowned, and stood listening, but her singing did not die away into the distance as he had expected. She was hidden somewhere, and her voice remained to trouble him.

He began to dig with fierce determination, jaw set, eyes staring at the brown soil. And presently he stopped, and lifted up his head like a rabbit that has crouched hidden in a tuft of grass. What a chance for a jester to have thrown a clod at him! The girl’s singing had ceased.

Martin breathed hard, and lifted up his spade for a stroke, but the silence had fooled him.

“The moon shone full on my window

When Jock came down through the wood,

And I felt the wind in the trees blow

The springtime into my blood.”

She gave the words with a kind of passionate recklessness, and all her youth seemed to thrill in her throat. Martin bowed his head and went on digging as though by sheer physical effort he could save himself from being a man.

Presently he found himself up against the hedge, with no more ground that he could attack with the spade. The hedge was in leaf, and hid the open moor from him. He fancied he heard some one moving on the other side of the green wall.

“Martin—Martin Valliant.”

He started to walk toward the chapel, but the voice followed him along the hedge.

“Do not be angry with me, Martin Valliant; I want to speak with you. You are a good man and to be trusted; I am a grown woman and no fool.”

Martin hesitated.

“What would you say to me?”

“Many things. I have the wit to know that all is not well with the world. We are heretics, Father Martin, heretics in our hearts. We—in Paradise—no longer believe what the monks teach us, for they are bad men, who laugh in their sleeves at God.”

Martin’s eyes hardened.

“Such words should not come from your lips, child.”

She laughed recklessly.

“I speak of what I see. Is Father Geraint a holy man? Do the brothers keep their vows? And why should they—when they are but men? It is all a great mockery. And why did they send you away to this solitary place?”

He did not answer her at once, and his face was sad.

“No, it is no mockery,” he said at last, “nor is life easy for those who strive toward holiness. Get you gone, Kate. I will keep my faith with God.”

He could hear her plucking at the hedge with her fingers.

“I do not please you,” she said sullenly.

“God forgive you,” he answered her. “You are to me but a brown bird or a child. Shall I offend against God, and you, and my own soul because other men are base? No; and I will prove my faith.”

She heard him go to the cell, and a sudden awe of him awoke in her heart. She went and hid in the gorse and waited, expecting some strange and violent thing to happen. Presently she saw him come forth carrying an oak stool, a length of rope, and a knife. He went straight toward the great wooden cross on its mound, and for a moment panic seized her. Martin Valliant was going to hang himself!

She crouched, watching him, ready to rush out and strive with him for his life. She saw Martin set the oak stool at the foot of the cross, stand on it, cut the rope into two pieces, and fasten them to the two arms of the cross. He made a loop of each, and turning his back to the beam, thrust his hands through the loops. Then she understood.

Martin Valliant had only to thrust the stool away or take his feet from it, and he would hang by the arms—crucified. And that was what he did. He raised himself by drawing on the ropes, lifted his feet from the oak stool, and let himself drop so that he hung by the arms.

Kate knelt there, her arms folded across her bosom. Her brown eyes had grown big and solemn, more like the eyes of a child. She looked at Martin Valliant, and her awe of him was mingled with a strange, choking tenderness.

How long would he hang there? How long would he endure? He had only to place his feet upon the oak stool in order to rest himself to show some mercy to his body. But the soul of the man welcomed pain. His eyes looked steadily toward the sea with an obstinate tranquillity that made her marvel at his patience.

The day was far spent and the sun low in the west, and as the sun sank lower it fell behind the cross and showed like a halo about Martin Valliant’s head. The glare was in Kate’s eyes, so that the cross and the man hanging upon it were no more than a black outline.

How long would he endure? How would it end?

And then, of a sudden, the eyes of her soul were opened. She was no longer the laughing wench in love with the shape of a man. She saw something noble hanging there against the sunset, a figure that was like the figure of the Christ.

She flung herself on her face, and wept for Martin and her own heart. There was no escape from the truth. It was she who had crucified him, put him to this torment.

The sun had touched the hills and there was a wonderful golden radiance covering the earth as she rose up with wet eyes, and hastened toward the cross. She went on her knees, kissed the man’s feet, and wiped away the mark of her kisses with her hair.

“I will go,” she said, bowing her head. “If I have sinned against your holiness, Martin Valliant, forgive me—because I love you.”

He looked down at her and smiled, though his arms felt as though they were being torn from their sockets.

“Who am I that I should forgive you, sister? Sometimes it is good to suffer. Go back to Paradise.”

She rose up and left him, running wildly down the long slope of the moor, not daring to let herself look back.

“He shall suffer no more for my sake,” she kept saying to herself, and all the while she was weeping and wishing herself dead.

Chapter VIII

Roger Bland, my Lord of Troy, rode back from hunting in the Forest. Dan Love, his huntsman, had sent word that morning that he had found the slot of a hart down by Darvel’s Holt, and that the beast lay close in one of the thickets. My Lord of Troy had gone out with his hounds and gentlemen, hunted the hart, and slain him. He was riding home in the cool of the evening, the sunlight shining on his doublet of green cloth of gold, its slashed sleeves puffed with crimson, as though striped with blood.

Troy Castle loomed up above at the top of a steep and grassy hill, throwing a huge shadow across the valley. It was the crown of Roger Bland’s pride, the sign and symbol of his greatness, for the Lord of Troy was a new man, a shrewd hound who had lapped up the blood of the old nobles butchered in the wars of Lancaster and York. Richard Crookback had been well served by Roger Bland. The fellow was a brain, an ear, a creature of the closet, bold in betraying, cautious in risking his own soul.

Yet the Lord of Troy had a presence, a certain lean dignity. His face narrowed to a long, outjutting chin. His mouth was very small, his pale eyes set somewhat close together. The man’s nostrils were cruel, his forehead high and serene. When he spoke it was with a dry and playful shrewdness; he could be very debonair; his tongue wore silk; there was nothing of the butcher about him.

Roger Bland was a man of the new age, half merchant, half scholar, with some of the pride of a prince. He had caught the spirit of the Italians. Subtlety pleased him; he despised the stupid English bull. And up in Troy Castle he lived magnificently, and kept a quiet eye on the country for leagues around, a hawk ready to pounce on any stir or trouble in the land. And the Forest hated him with an exceeding bitter hatred, for it had suffered grimly at his hands, seeing that it had chosen to wear the Red Rose when the White had proved more fortunate. The Lord of Troy had ridden into it, and left great silences behind him. There were houses empty and ruinous, and no man dared go near them. There were people who had fled across the sea. There were graves in the Forest, shallow holes in the earth into which bodies had been tumbled and left hidden in the green glooms.

As Roger Bland’s black horse lifted him out of the valley a man came down to meet him along the steep road that climbed the hill. It was Noble Vance, the Forest Warden, a thick, coarse stub of a man who dressed to his own red color. The Forest folk feared him, and mocked at his parents who had christened him so sententiously. “Noble, forsooth!” He wore a doublet of scarlet and hose of green. His red hat looked as big as the wheel of a cart, and the face under it was the color of raw meat, and all black about the jowl.

He swept his hat to the Lord of Troy.

“My lord has had good sport,” and he nodded toward the hart lying across the back of a horse.

“Excellent, Master Vance.”

“There is other game, my lord, beyond the purlieus. I have ridden over to speak to you.”

Roger Bland glanced back over either shoulder.

“A good gossip, my friend——”

“As you say, sir, a good gossip——”

“Is best kept for the closet, and a cup of wine. Ride here beside me. Yes, we have made an excellent day of it; we turned that beast out by Darvel’s Holt and ran him three miles. I love a beast with a good heart, Vance, and a man who fights to the death.”

The Forest Warden grinned.

“Such men are growing scarce, my lord, in these parts. A few green youngsters perhaps, and an old badger or two deep down in their earths.”

“Like old Jack Falconer, I shall draw that badger some day.”

Trumpets sounded as they crossed the bridge over the dry moat, for my Lord of Troy had a love of ceremony and spacious, opulent magnificence. The guards at the gate-house presented their pikes. In the main court grooms and servants came hurrying in my lord’s livery of silver and green. A page stood uncovered beside Roger Bland’s horse, with a cup of wine ready on a silver salver.

My lord waved him aside.

“Bring two cups, child, to my closet, and let it be known that I am not to be troubled. Now, Master Vance.”

They entered by a little door in an angle of the courtyard, and a staircase led them to the great solar above and at the end of the hall. From the solar a passage cut in the thickness of the wall linked up my lord’s state chamber with his closet in one of the towers. It was a richly garnished room, its hangings of cloth of gold, its floor covered with skins and velvets. There were books on the table. The open door of a great oak armoire showed ivory chessmen set ready on a board.

My lord chose one of the window-seats. He liked a stately perch, a noble view, and his back to the light. The subtler shades did not matter to Noble Vance; he let fate hang him where it pleased, like a joint of meat in a butcher’s shop.

“It is wondrous hot for May, sir.”

“The blood is hot in the spring, Vance. Here comes the wine.”

The page served them, and had his orders.

“Stay in the gallery, Walter, and see that we are not disturbed.”

The Forest Warden waited for my lord to raise his cup.

“Your good esteem, sir.”

“I think you hold it, Vance. Do things ever happen in the Forest?”

“But little, sir. You have left no man fit to quarrel with you. But I have come upon a little business in Gawdy Town.”

“Such places breed fleas—and adventures. What is it, Vance?”

“Young Gilbert Dale and the girl are there.”

“What—those cubs?”

“They came in the ship Rose. The lad is a grown man, and the girl a fine, black-browed wench. Pimp Odgers spied them out, though they played the part of strollers.”

“You are sure?”

“I have Odgers here, and another fellow who knew the Dales, and could swear to the son.”

Roger Bland turned in his seat and looked out over the Forest. It was as noble a view as a man could desire, a world of green valleys and distant hills blue on the horizon. The lord of Troy Castle smiled as he sat there high up in the tower, a sly, cynical smile of self-congratulation. The Forest lay at his feet; he was its master. Even the thought of the cruel strength he had shown in taming it pleased him, for, like many men who lack brute physical courage, he was cleverly and shrewdly cruel.

“How many years, Vance, is it since that day when we smoked the Dales out of Woodmere?”

“Seven, this June, sir.”

“Old Dale had sent his cubs away. What is the young gadfly doing in Gawdy Town?”

“Playing the viol and singing songs, with bells in his cap. He goes out of nights, I hear, but my men say that it is to Petticoat Lane.”

“Many things are hatched in a brothel, Vance. And the girl?”

“Plays the lute and sings. A haughty young madam, they say, with eyes quick to stab a man.”

“There is no whisper of secret work, no playing for Harry Richmond?”

Vance shook his big head solemnly.

“I keep my nose for that fox,” he said, “but have struck no scent as yet. What is your pleasure, sir?”

The Lord of Troy continued to gaze out over the Forest.

“Saw you ever anything more peaceful, Master Vance, than yon green country? It is I who have taught it to be peaceful, and much labor it gave me. I have cleared it of wolves; I have cowed its broken men. I choose that it shall remain at peace.”

The warden’s eyes glittered.

“The Dales were ever turbulent, hot-blooded folk. That young man might give us trouble.”

“Prevent it, Master Warden. You have a way of contriving these things. A quarrel in some low house, daggers, and a scuffle in the street.”

“My lord, it is as simple as eating pie. My men will manage it. And the girl?”

“Bring her here, Master Vance. We will question her. It is possible to learn things from a woman. Moreover, our good king loves a wildfire jade.”

The Forest Warden finished his wine, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

“By the rope that hanged Judas, sir,” he said, “it is a pleasure to serve a great man who knows his own mind!”

Chapter IX

Mellis and her brother had left Gawdy Town lying behind them on the blue edge of the sea. The day was very young, and a north wind came over the marshes about the mouth of the Rondel river, bending the reeds in the dykes and rousing ripples in the lengthening grass. Mellis was mounted on a modest nag whose brown coat and sleepy ears were more suited to the russet cloak she wore than to the brighter colors underneath it. Gilbert marched at her side. His eyes looked gray in the morning; the north wind had pinched his courage a little; and he and Mellis were to part for a while.

“Keep your heart up, sweet sister.”

She looked down at him and smiled. Her eyes were steadier than his, and more determined, and she was less touched by the north wind. His nature was more mercurial, more restless, not so patient when life’s adventure dragged.

“I feel near home, Gilbert. I think I could live in the Forest—like a wild thing.”

“Woodmere must be all green, and the lilies white on the water. The house is but a shell, they say.”

Her eyes filled with a great tenderness.

“My heart is there,” she said, sighing.

A flock of sheep passed them, being driven to the river pastures. A great wood-wain came rumbling along, loaded high with brown fagots. Mellis’s nostrils dilated, and her eyes shone.

“What a good ship, and what merchandise! I can smell the Forest.”

He laughed, with a note of recklessness.

“Oh the merry, merry life, with the horn and the hound, and the bed under the greenwood tree. Why did our people wear the wrong color, sister? Our hearts were red, and the color beggared us.”

“My heart is the color of fire,” she answered him, “and I let it burn with the thought of vengeance. When will you begin to tell me your secrets?”

“Very soon, sister. I want no listeners within a mile of us. You see how discreet I am! Gawdy Town is a pest of a place; even the dogs do their spying; and there is always the chance of your getting a knife in your back. That is why I thought it better that you should go.”

“Have you ever found me a coward?”

“Dear heart, you are too brave, and such courage may be dangerous.”

They were leaving the marshes behind them, and the Rondel had taken to itself glimmering green lines of pollard willows. Little farmsteads dotted the long northward slope of the hills. Here and there the Forest showed itself, thrusting a green headland into the cornlands and the meadows.

Gilbert was on the alert. Presently he pointed to an open beech wood that spread down close to the road.

“There is our council chamber, Mellis.”

“It should serve.”

“We can tie up the nag and see how my friend the cook has filled your saddle-bags.”

They turned aside into the beech wood, tethered the horse, and sat down under a tree. They were hidden from the road; the gray trunks hemmed them in.

Gilbert was examining the saddle-bags.

“That cook is a brave creature! Good slices of bread with meat in between. And a bottle of wine. There is enough stuff here to last you for days. Dear Lord, what trouble I was at to explain my buying of that sorry old nag!”

He set one of the bags between them.

“Now for dinner and a gossip. There are two words that you must never utter, Mellis, save when some one challenges you with the question, ‘What of Wales?’ ”

“And those words?”

“Are ‘Owen Tudor.’ They will win you friends where friends are to be had, but also they might hang you.”

“Of course.”

“Our plans have not gone so badly. Our king across the water is a shrewd gentleman. Our business is to stir up a hornets’ nest in these parts; others will play the same game elsewhere, so that Crooked Dick shall be stung in a hundred places while Lord Harry is crossing the sea. Roger Bland is our arch enemy.”

She drew in a deep breath.

“Do I forget it?”

“Tsst!—not too much fire! He is the very devil for cunning. We have got to hold him in these parts, so worry him that he cannot march and join the Hunchback when spears will be precious to that king. They will find a dozen fires alight in every corner of the kingdom, and if our Harry wins the day, Woodmere will be ours again.”

She uttered a fiercer cry.

“And blood shall pay for blood. Oh, I am no sweet saint, Gilbert. That man dragged our father at his horse’s heels, and then——”

She broke off as though the words were too bitter to be spoken.

Gilbert’s eyes had hardened.

“God forgive me for feeling merry at times. Well, sister, I stay on in Gawdy Town, as you know, to wait for news, and to watch for the men who will come over the sea. Old John Falconer is our watchdog in the Forest. The Blounts and the Ropers are with us; also a dozen more. We ought to muster three hundred men when the day comes. The Flemming is a jewel. His pack mules have smuggled war gear and stores into the Forest. There are three suits of armor, besides bills and salets and jacks hidden in our cellar under the south tower. There is a big beam, too, in the sluice ditch to throw across the gap in the trestle bridge.”

He lay back against the tree, thinking deeply.

“This Father Jude on the Black Moor is a close-mouthed old worthy. He is a man who asks no questions, and there is money to be made by such people; a fellow who can mind his own business is worth his wage. There is not a wilder place in the Forest. You will lodge there in the pilgrim’s house; the Benedictines of Paradise are bound to feed and lodge any traveler who passes that way. Besides, Father Jude is one of us; the man has some bitter grudge against the Lord of Troy.”

She looked at him questioningly.

“And I am a pilgrim.”

“Under a vow.”

“And how shall I serve you, on the top of a moor? It seems foolishness.”

“If a man goes to shrive himself or to pray at a holy place, can folk quarrel with him? That butcher villain of a Vance has his spies everywhere. A bird does not fly straight to its nest when a cat is about.”

“True.”

“And, sister, it would be well if you could steal your way to Woodmere, and see with your own eyes that things are as old Falconer and the Flemming say they are. The cellar trap is hidden under a pile of loose stones; a stout stake through the ring will raise it.”

“I could find my way to Woodmere in the dark.”

“What a wench you are for wandering! You have that money safely? I might have my purse cut in Gawdy. You must play Jew.”

She put her hand to her bosom.

“It is here.”

They talked awhile of all that was in their hearts and of the great adventure that lay before them. Mellis was as serious as he was gay; his flippancy increased as the time slipped by.

“I shall have a tale to spin, oh false woman who passed as my sister! I am a Jack without a Jill.”

Yet his eyes were sad. A gradual melancholy took hold of him.

“Kiss me, child; we must be parting. Keep a brave heart.”

She kissed him with sudden tenderness.

“God guard you, my brother.”

“Oh, I have a cat’s lives!”

He jumped up and went to unfasten her nag.

“Remember, this good priest will ask no questions. He is a kind soul, and will swear to any lie, so they tell me. Up with you, sweetheart.”

He strapped on the saddle-bags, helped her to mount, and led her horse out of the wood. There was not a soul to be seen on the road, and still he seemed loth to leave her.

“I will go with you a little way.”

She looked at him dearly.

“No, I am brave. And there is no one here to see us part, and to gape and wonder concerning us.”

“True, oh queen! And so, farewell.”

He tossed his cap at her, laughed, and went off whistling.

And a sudden strange sadness assailed her. She held her horse in and sat there watching him. He was so gallant, so debonair, this brother of hers.

And she would never set eyes on him again. No prophetic instinct could tell her that.

Chapter X

Brother Geraint made his way through the dusk to Widow Greensleeve’s house at Cherry Acre. It was a warm, still night, and the scent of the white thorn blossom in the hedges hung heavy on the air.

He came to the gate and stood listening. There was no sound to be heard save the rush of the river through the sluices of the mill.

Geraint pushed the gate open and peered about under the apple trees.

“Good evening to you, holy sir.”

Some one was laughing close to him in the dusk.

“Who’s there?”

“What, not know my voice?”

“It is you?”

“Come and see. Have you forgotten the seat by the hedge?”

He thrust the apple boughs aside, and saw the white kerchief that covered her shoulders.

“Where is the girl?”

“Saying her prayers somewhere. I have not seen her since noon. She is touched in the head, and goes wandering for hours together.”

Geraint sat down on the bench beside the dame. He was in a sullen mood, and very bitter.

“The fool! Send her back to the moor.”

“She swears she will not go.”

“This Martin Valliant is the devil. She could make nothing of him?”

“Why, my good man, it was he who made a Magdalene of her. She came back crying, ‘He is a saint. There is no man in Paradise fit to lace his shoes!’ ”

Geraint cursed under his breath.

“A pest take both of them!”

She rapped his shoulder sharply with her knuckles.

“A word of warning, Dom Geraint. If the man is dangerous, the girl may prove more so. I tell you he has worked a miracle with her, and women are strange creatures. She says openly, ‘Some day Martin Valliant will come down from the moor, and make an end of the wickedness in Paradise.’ ”

“She says that!”

“Aye, and dreams of it. I tell you women are strange creatures when love has its way. She is all for turning anchoress, and praying all day to St. Martin. For half a cup of milk she would go running through the valley, screaming the truth. Be very careful, Dom Geraint.”

He leaned forward, glowering and biting his nails.

“We have made a poor throw, dame. And here is that pestilent pedant of an abbot threatening us with a visitation. We have heard of the storm he raised at Birchhanger; he trampled on the whole priory there, had one of the brothers hanged by the judge on circuit. Privilege of clergy, forsooth! The Church is to be regenerated!”

He rocked to and fro.

“And this Martin Valliant, the very man to play the holy sneak! A pretty pass indeed! A cub we took in and nurtured!”

The woman touched his sleeve.

“Some men are too good for this world. They are so much in love with the next world——”

He laughed discordantly.

“That they should be kicked into it! By my bones, there’s truth in that! It had entered my head, dame. And after all it is but doing a saint a service to help him to a halo.”

“Tsst—you are too noisy! Have a care.”

They drew closer together on the bench till their heads were nearly touching.

“Kate is not about?”

“She’ll come back singing a litany. We shall hear her.”

Yet the girl was nearer than either of them dreamed. She had come wandering silently along the path soon after Geraint had entered the garden, and their voices had warned her. She was standing on the other side of the hedge within two yards of the bench, her hands clenched, her face white and sharp.

She could hear all that they said to each other, and it was sufficient to make her wise as to what was in Geraint’s heart. She realized how his brethren at Paradise hated Martin, and how they wished him out of the way.

Kate heard Geraint stirring at last. There were sounds from the other side of the hedge, sounds that made her wince. She crept away, step by step, till a turn of the path hid her from view.

The gate shut with a clatter. She heard the monk give a great yawn, and then his heavy steps dying away beyond the orchard.

Kate stood very close to the hedge and shivered. Life had so changed for her; she was horrified at things that she had hardly understood before; men seemed contemptible creatures. She was thinking of what she had overheard, and of the treachery that threatened Martin Valliant.

Kate had kept her promise, and the very keeping of it had strengthened her heart; but that night she was persuaded to break it, nor could her conscience find fault with her.

There would be a moon in an hour. She crept around to the stable that stood some way from the house, put a halter on the old gray donkey, and got the beast out with scarcely a sound. He was as stubborn as any ass could be in most people’s hands, but he had a liking for humoring Kate. She led him down the orchard, through the slip gate into the dame’s meadow, and so away over the open country to the bridge at the mill. No one saw her cross the river, though the miller nudged his wife when he heard the donkey’s hoofs on the timber of the bridge.

“Now who would you guess that to be?”

The good wife ran to the window, but saw nothing, since the moon was not up.

“An ass, by the sound.”

“Two of them, more likely. And supposing it were Kate Succory, where would she be going?”

“It is best to mind one’s business, John, when we live at the prior’s mill.”

“Remember it, dame, by all means,” he said, somewhat sullenly, “there is not an honest man among them now that Martin Valliant is away on the moor.”

His wife clapped her hands.

“Maybe that ass travels as far as the moor.”

“Get you to bed. A woman’s tongue stirs up too much mire.”

Kate did not trouble her head as to whether anyone had seen her from the mill. She set the donkey’s nose for the Forest, and helped him with her heels. Luckily, she knew the way, and soon the moon came over the hill to help her.

“A blessing on you, Master Moon,” she said quite solemnly, looking over the donkey’s tail.

The clock at Paradise was striking midnight when Kate saw the Black Moor lying dim and mysterious under the moon. More than once she had been shrewdly frightened in the deeps of the woods; but old Jock was the most stolid of mokes, and the beast’s steadiness had comforted her. She had stretched herself on his back, her arms about his neck, her face close to his flopping ears, and had talked to him.

“Who’s afraid, Jock? I can say a Mater Maria and a Pater. Besides, we are on a good errand, and the saints will watch over us.”

Jock, by his silence, most heartily agreed with her.

“Dom Geraint is a treacherous villain. The lean, black rat! Some day Abbot Hilary will send for Martin Valliant and will make him prior.”

She sat up straight on Jock’s back as the donkey climbed the moor. The place had a magic for her. She could imagine all sorts of miraculous things happening where Martin Valliant lived.

“Assuredly he will be a very great saint,” she said to herself, “and people will come to him to be healed.”

Presently she saw the cross standing out against the sky, and it stirred her almost to passionate tears. She slipped off Jock’s back, fastened him to a stunted thorn, and went on alone.

Everything was very still. In the far south the sea glimmered under the moon. Kate went forward with a strange, exultant awe in her heart. Martin would pardon her for breaking her promise when he knew why she had come.

The buildings were black and solemn, though a faint ray of light shone from the window of the chapel. It was the vigil of St. Florence, and Martin had left two candles burning on the altar while he slept for an hour.

Kate looked into the chapel and found it empty. She knelt on the threshold, put her hands together, and said a prayer.

Martin Valliant was sound asleep in his cell, but he awoke to the sound of some one knocking. He sat up on his pallet, and listened.

“Martin Valliant—Martin Valliant!”

He knew her voice, and for a moment he would not answer her.

“Martin Valliant, be not angry with me. I am not breaking my vow to you; no, not in the spirit. I have come to warn you.”

“Child, what mean you?”

“Beware of Brother Geraint, beware of the monks of Paradise. They go about to do you a great wrong.”

He rose to his knees.

“How should you know?”

“Listen. I speak what is true.”

She told him of the things she had heard Geraint whisper in the garden.

“They are evil men, and mean treachery toward you. I could not rest, Martin Valliant, because you are a good man, and taught me to see the Christ.”

There was silence.

Then she said, “Pray for me, Martin Valliant,” and was gone.

Martin rose up and opened the door of the cell, but she was out of sight over the edge of the moor.

He stood there a long while, rigid, wide-eyed, a young man amazed that older men should be so base.

Chapter XI

Mellis Dale had passed the night sleeping under a thorn tree in Bracknell Wood, with a pile of last year’s bracken for a bed. The thorn tree had stood as a green and white pavilion, and there was a forest pool among the birch trees of Bracknell that had served her both as a labrum and a mirror. She broke her fast to the sound of the singing of the woodlarks, and with the sunlight playing through the delicate tracery of the birches. Her brown nag was cropping the wet grass in a little clearing where she had tethered him.

Mellis’s eyes were full of a quiet tenderness that morning. She was a Forest child, and its sounds and scents and colors were very familiar and very dear. She was as forest-wise as any ranger or woodman, and was as much part of its life as the birds or the deer or the mysterious woodland streams and the brown pools where the dead leaves lay buried. A great content possessed her. She had no fear of the wild life or of a bed under the stars.

The sun had been up some hours before she saddled her nag and rode forward through Bracknell Deep. She knew all the ways, though Woodmere lay three leagues to the north-west, and the Black Moor two leagues to the east of it. She felt no need of hurrying. The deep woods delighted her; her dark eyes seemed to fill with their mystery; their silence soothed her heart. Life was a great adventure, a game of hide-and-seek in a garden where every path and nook and thicket were unknown. She was strong and comely and full of the pride of her youth; her breath was sweet, her black hair fell to her knees, her lips were as red as the berries on a briar.

Martin Valliant was hoeing weeds in Father Jude’s garden when Mellis rode her brown nag up the southern slope of the Black Moor. There was no life in Martin’s labor; his eyes had a dull look as though some pain gnawed at his vitals. His heart had discovered a new bitterness in life, for the words that Kate Succory had spoken to him in the night kept up a tumult in his brain. He had begun to understand many things that had seemed obscure and meaningless. He even realized why he was hoeing weeds on the top of a lonely moor. The very men whose life he had shared were filled with malice against him, and, like Joseph’s brethren, were trying to sell him into bondage.

He heard the tramp of Mellis’s horse, and his new-born mistrust stood on the alert.

“Why should I fear anything that walks the earth,” he thought, “man, woman, or beast? They are but creatures of flesh.”

And then he discovered himself standing straight as a young ash tree, resting his hands on the top of the handle of the hoe, and staring over the hedge into a woman’s eyes. He could see her head, shoulders and bosom; the green hedge hid the rest of her. But if Martin had dared to scoff at Dame Nature, that good lady was quick and vigorous with her retort. She showed him this girl, black-haired, red-lipped, flushed with riding, sitting her horse with a certain haughtiness, her head held high, her white throat showing proudly.

“You are Father Jude?”

Martin could have stammered with a sudden, wondering awe of her. Her eyes were fixed on him questioningly, and with an intentness that heralded an incipient frown.

“Father Jude is no longer here.”

“Not here!”

“He lies sick at Paradise.”

The frown showed now on her forehead. Her eyes lifted and gazed beyond him, and Martin Valliant had never seen such eyes before. His mistrust of her had vanished, he knew not why. Paradise had no knowledge of such a creature as this. She had ridden out of the heart of a mystery, and her face was the face of June.

“Fools!”

She was angry, perplexed. And then she smiled down at Martin with quick subtlety.

“Your pardon, father.”

She smiled whole-heartedly as she took stock of his youth.

“What am I saying! I have a vow of silence upon me, save that I may speak to such as you. I am a pilgrim. I had a fellow-pilgrim with me, but she fell sick at Burchester, and I rode on alone. Father Jude’s name was put in my mouth by the prioress of Burchester. Is there not a pilgrim’s rest-house here?”

Martin Valliant was still full of his wonder at her beauty.

“Assuredly. This is the chapelry of St. Florence. The good saint so willed it that all who passed this way should have food and lodging.”

Her face had changed its expression. She showed a sudden reticence, a cold pride.

“St. Florence has my thanks. Will you send your servant to take my horse?”

He gaped at her, as though overcome by the thought that this creature of mystery was to move and breathe in the guest-house next his cell.

He tried to save his dignity by taking refuge in sententiousness.

“I am the servant of St. Florence and of all those who tarry here.”

She glanced at him guardedly, and seemed to realize his unworldliness.

“I shall be no great burden. A stall for the horse and a roof for my own head. I can look to my own horse, if you will show me the stable.”

Martin let the hoe drop out of his hands. He went striding along the hedge as though some enchantment had fallen upon him. But she was out of the saddle by the time he reached the gate, and, by the way she carried herself, more than fit to deal with her own affairs.

“That is the stable, there by the woodstack?”

“Yes.”

“Is the door locked? No? I thank you, good father.”

He loitered about there like a great boy, feeling that he ought to help her, but that she did not desire his help. She seemed to have a way of taking possession of things. He could see her removing the saddle and bridle from her horse, and presently she was at the haystack gathering up some of the loose hay in her arms. She had left her brown cloak in the stable, and her blue spencer and green gown made Martin think of some rich blue flower on a green stalk.

Next he saw her handling a bucket, and this time the spirit moved him. He went across to her with boyish gravity.

“The spring is down the hill. I will fetch the water.”

She gave him the bucket with an air of unconcern. Her hand touched his, and thrilled him to the shoulder, but she did not so much as notice that she had touched him.

“Thank you, Father——”

“Martin.”

“Martin.”

“It would be too heavy for you to carry,” he said bluntly.

But she turned back into the stable as though she had not heard him.

Martin Valliant went down to the spring with a most strange sense of self-dissatisfaction. He filled the bucket, balanced it on the rough stones that formed a wall around the spring, and stared at his own reflection in the water. The thought struck him that he had never looked at himself in that same way before, critically, with a personal inquisitiveness. A new self-consciousness was being born in him. He stood there brooding, wondering if other men——

Then he rebuked himself with fierce severity, and carried the bucket back up the hill. Mellis was not in the stable, so he watered the horse and stared at the saddle and bridle hanging on the wall as though they could tell him who she was and whence she came. It occurred to him that she might be hungry, and at the same time he remembered that the food in his larder was hardly fit for a sturdy beggar.

This struck him as an absolute disaster. He went guiltily to his cell, and took out what by courtesy he called bread. It was of his own baking, a detestable piece of alchemy.

He weighed it in his hand, and found himself thinking of the lithe way in which she moved.

“They bake good bread at Paradise,” he said to himself.

A quite ridiculous anger attacked him.

“Mean hounds! This chapelry should be better served. A couple of mules with panniers——”

He went forth, stroking his chin dubiously, and looking at the bread he carried.

“Poor stuff for such a pilgrim.”

The door of the little rest-house stood open, showing its oak table and benches, and the rude wooden pallets that served as beds. Mellis was standing behind the table, unpacking one of her saddle-bags.

“This bread——”

He felt his face growing hot. Her eyes regarded him with momentary amusement.

“Is that—bread?”

“It is as God made me make it.”

She was smiling. His quaint humility touched her.

“I will take your bread, Father Martin, and in exchange you shall eat some of mine.”

She took out a manchet wrapped in white butter cloth and held it out to him.

“Put your bread upon the table. I dare vow it cost you much honest—labor.”

She had nearly said “cursing,” but his solemn face chastened her.

Martin Valliant took her manchet, handling it as though it were something that would break. His eyes wandered around the room and noticed the wooden pallets.

“There should be some sweet hay spread there,” he said to himself.

Mellis was watching him, but with no great interest. For the moment life called to her as a fierce and impetuous adventure. She had no use for a man who wore the dress of a priest.

“I will keep this bread for the altar,” he said suddenly, feeling that he had no excuse for loitering any longer in the room.

For an hour or more Martin Valliant went about his work with grim thoroughness. He fetched more water from the spring, cut up wood for kindling, swept out the chapel and his cell, and looked into the press where he kept his vestments to see that the moths had not been at work. Yet all the while he had his mind’s eye on the door of the rest-house; his thoughts wandered, no matter how busy he kept his hands.

He was standing at the doorway of the chapel, polishing one of the silver candlesticks that stood on the altar, when Mellis came out of the rest-house and turned her steps toward the great wooden cross. She passed close to the chapel in wandering toward the highest point of the moor, and her eyes rested for a moment on Martin Valliant and his silver candlestick.

It may have been that she asked herself what this tall fellow meant by living the life of an old woman when he was built for the trade of the sword. At all events, Martin Valliant saw a look in her eyes that was very like pity touched with scorn.

He watched her go to the cross and sit down on the mound. Her chin was raised, and she turned her head slowly from side to side, as though to bring all the Forest under her ken. There was something finely adventurous about her pose. She made Martin think of a wild-eyed bird surveying the world before spreading her wings for a flight.

He conceived a sudden distaste for polishing such a thing as a candlestick. He studied his own hands; they were big and brown, and he knew how strong they were. He remembered how he had straightened an iron crowbar across his knee, to the delight of the prior’s woodcutters. And when the big wain had got bogged by Lady’s Brook, Martin Valliant had crawled under the axle beam and lifted it out.

The candlestick was returned to the altar, and Martin went down to the haystack to fetch hay for Mellis’s bed. The hay knife was in the stack, and he cut out a good truss of fresh stuff and carried it to the rest-house. He had spread it on one of the wooden beds and was crossing the threshold, when he met Mellis face to face.

“I have brought some hay for a bed.”

He colored like fire, but her voice was casual when she answered him.

“You vex yourself too much on my account, father. Last night I slept out under a tree.”

Martin spent an hour walking up and down behind the chapel, raging with sudden self-humiliation. Why did she treat him as though he were an old man or a child?

Chapter XII

The next day came and went, a pageant of white clouds in a deep blue sky, and the earth all green to the purple of the distant hills.

Martin Valliant began the morning with a queer flush of excitement, even of trepidation. The woman with the dark hair and the wild woodland eyes would mount her horse and ride away out of his life. And somehow he did not want her to go, nor was he ashamed of the desire. He found himself in awe of her, but he did not fear her as he had feared poor Kate Succory. She was a mystery, a vision, a strange new world that made him stand wide-eyed with wonder. Her lips made him think of the holy wine, pure drink, red as blood, and undefiled.

His restlessness began with the dawn. He rang the chapel bell, went through the services, with his thoughts wandering out and waiting expectantly outside the rest-house door. For the very first time the spirit of dissimulation entered Brother Martin’s life, prompting him to walk up and down the grassy space outside his cell, hands folded, head bent, as though in meditation.

He saw her door open. She came out, her black hair hanging loose, wished him a calm “good morning,” and went down toward the spring. She had gone to wash herself there, to dabble her hands in the water. Martin paced up and down.

She returned, disappeared into the rest-house, and there was silence—suspense. Martin Valliant kept passing the open doorway, but he had not the courage to look in.

“Father Martin——”

He faced around with a guileless air, as though she had been very distant from his thoughts.

“Did you speak to me, Mistress——”

“And I have not told you my name! I am called Catharine Lovel. I wish to tarry here for some days, if St. Florence does not forbid it.”

Martin looked grave.

“I never heard that St. Florence had set a boundary to his charity,” he said.

“Then I am the more his debtor in the spirit. This is so sweet and calm a place. I come from a forest country, Father Martin.”

“It is a very wonderful country,” he agreed.

“And should be pleasant to one who has been vowed to a month’s silence?”

Again Martin agreed with her. She stood at gaze, her hands clasped in front of her.

“One cannot lose oneself with this moor as a guide post. I shall ride out, Father Martin, and go down into the woods.”

“In the valley there the beech trees are very noble,” he said; “I love them.”

“Sometimes, Father Martin, trees are nobler than men.”

He pondered those words of hers all day.

Dusk was falling before she returned. The brown horse’s ears hung limp, as though she had ridden him many miles, and his coat was stained with sweat. Martin Valliant had been standing in the doorway of his cell. He went forward to hold her horse.

“I so managed it that I lost myself,” she said.

Her face looked white in the dusk, and her eyes tired.

“I reached a river, a fine stream.”

“The Rondel. It runs a league away, and the woods are great and very thick.”

“That lured me on—perhaps. I found a ford, and pushed my horse over, there are wild grasslands beyond all full of flowers.”

“I have never been so far,” he confessed.

“It is a great country, even wilder than my own. I saw as splendid a hart as ever swam a stream come down and cross the river. And now I am as hungry as though I had followed the hounds.”

He saw that she was weary.

“I will look to the horse.”

She glided down from the saddle.

“The poor beast has had to suffer for my whims, father. He will bless you, no doubt. And so good-night to you; I shall be asleep almost before I have supped.”

Martin Valliant led the horse to the stable, took off the saddle and bridle, and rubbed the beast down with a handful of hay. He found the animal muddied above the knees, and there were other matters to set Martin thinking. The fords of the Roding were floored with sand, for the Roding was a clean river and ran at a good pace. Of course, the mud might have come from some piece of bog or a forest stream. He was the more astonished that she should have reached the river, and having reached it, found her way back again through one of the wildest and most savage parts of the Forest. The ways were few and treacherous, and known only to the forest folk, and yet what reason was there for her to lie?

The second day resembled the first in its happenings, save that Martin Valliant betrayed a more flagrant interest in this mysterious woman’s pilgrimage. She rode out early, and he hid himself behind a thorn bush on the moor and watched her progress. She chose neither the path that led to the beech woods, nor the road going west, but turned aside along the track that made for Oakshot Bottom. Martin watched her till she was out of sight, hidden by the belt of birches that bounded the northern rim of the moor.

She returned earlier that day, and in a strange and sullen temper. She let Martin take the horse, but her eyes avoided his, and she had little to say to him.

“I struck a fool’s country—all sand.”

“That would be the White Plain.”

“ ‘White’ they call it! A good jest!”

“Because of the birch trees.”

“Ah, the birch trees! I remember.”

He looked at her curiously, but she went straight to the rest-house and shut herself in. Something seemed to have gone very amiss with her that day, and Martin was honestly perplexed. Were women made of such wayward stuff that some dust, a wood of birch trees, and perhaps a few flies, could stir such spirited discontent?

He took her horse to the stable, fed and groomed him as though he were my lady’s servant. And again he examined the beast’s feet, only to discover something that was singular. One of the hind hoofs had red clay balled in it, and Martin Valliant knew that red clay was not to be found in that part of the Forest.

He picked the stuff out and stared at it, holding it in one palm.

“Oakshot is yellow, Bracknell is black,

Troy is as white as a miller’s sack,

The Paradise fields are as brown as wood,

But red is the color of Bloody Rood.”

He called to mind the old Forest jingle, and the reddish-yellow lump in his hand rhymed with it.

“Bloody Rood? That is the Blount’s lordship. Young Nigel holds the fee.”

He frowned and tossed the clay into the stall.

Martin saw no more of Mellis that evening; she remained shut up in the rest-house, nor did he leave the limits of his cell. A new emotion had been born in Martin Valliant’s heart—an emotion that was so utterly human that the saint was fast losing himself in the man. Mellis was growing more mysterious, more elusive, and Martin Valliant’s imagination had carried him away at a gallop in pursuit of her.

Why had she ridden all the way to Bloody Rood? Chance could not have carried her there, and what reason had she for hiding the truth? The adventure had not gone smoothly, to judge by the temper of her return. And what sort of adventure could befall a woman in the Forest?

From the moment of that thought an utterly new look came into Martin Valliant’s eyes. His nostrils dilated, he stared fixedly at some imaginary scene, his hands clenched themselves. Dame Nature had flicked him with her scourge of jealousy, set him thinking about a certain young Nigel Blount of Bloody Rood.

Martin Valliant discovered his own manhood that night. He had ceased to be an onlooker, a creature in petticoats, an impersonal, passionless saint. He was going to take a part in the adventure: to see for himself how life stood.

Chapter XIII

Mellis had little to say to him next morning when he carried her a bucket of water from the spring. She was standing in the doorway of the rest-house, a far-away look in her eyes, her black hair caught up by a piece of red ribbon and tied behind her shoulders.

Martin did not dare to question her as to what she purposed for the day. His own secret was too big for him, and he felt guilty toward her in his thoughts. He went back to his cell, filled a wallet with food, and laid it ready behind the door with a stout hollywood staff that had belonged to Father Jude. If the girl rode out that morning he had made up his mind to follow her and leave the chapelry to take care of itself.

Going out to reconnoiter, he saw Mellis in the stable saddling her horse. The hint was sufficient. He kept out of the way and bided his time.

She did not call to him that morning or offer him any explanation, but rode straight from the stable past the great cross and over the edge of the moor. Martin saw her go. He slung the wallet over his shoulder, took his staff, and followed, stopping at the rest-house door to see whether she had left her saddle-bags behind. They were lying on one of the wooden beds, so that he knew that she purposed to return.

As a boy, Martin Valliant had tracked the deer, and his following of Mellis was just as subtle a piece of hunting. The old brown horse was jaded and stale, but she pushed him to a trot down the slope of the moor, and Martin had to run to keep her well in view. Luckily she was too busy keeping a watch for rabbit holes to trouble about looking back. When she reached the place where the track branched she reined in, and Martin dropped down behind a furze bush. Her indecision lasted only for a few seconds, for when he raised his head cautiously to get sight of her she was already moving along the track that made for the Green Deeps. Martin’s nostrils quivered, and his eyes lost some of their hardness. She had not chosen the track to Oakshot Bottom; Bloody Rood and the Blounts were out of court.

The brown horse appeared to be setting his own pace, and she had to humor him because of his age. A fair stride enabled Martin to keep his distance. He had to follow very cautiously over the moor, watching her like a hound, and ready to drop to earth should she waver or look back. There was a moment when he thought that he had betrayed himself, for she reined in her horse and sat looking steadily back at the swell of the moor. Martin lay flat in the heather, and presently she rode on.

The Green Deeps opened before them, wild valleys choked with woodland, almost pathless, a region where outlaws sometimes hid themselves. A narrow ride almost choked with scrub and brambles followed the valleys, lifting itself now and again over the shoulder of a low hill. The woods towered against the blue, solemn and silent. Sometimes a stream broke the stillness with a thin, trickling murmur.

They were heading for the Rondel; Martin knew that much, though this wild country was all virgin to him. He had to keep in closer touch with her, for the track disappeared at times, and Mellis threaded her way among the oaks and beeches. He was astonished at the steady, unhesitating way she rode, choosing her path when the track branched, without any sign of faltering. The Deeps were a great green fog to Martin Valliant; he was utterly lost in them, save for the guesswork that they were traveling north. All his wits were centered on the girl, on keeping her in view, and pushing ahead quickly when he lost her behind some leafy screen, on saving himself from rushing into a betrayal.

The track climbed a hill, and then the ground fell steeply, almost like a green cliff. Martin saw the gleam of water shining below the crowded domes of the trees. It was the Rondel flashing in the sunlight between the green walls of the Forest.

Mellis was urging the brown horse into the water when Martin reached the underwood at the top of the bank. She had struck the ford, and he saw that the water was quite shallow, reaching just above the horse’s knees. He dared not break cover until she was across, and there was every chance of his losing her if he fell too far behind, but she rode her horse straight out of the water and on into the Forest without glancing back. Martin tucked up his frock and splashed his way across like Atlas plowing through the ocean, scrambled up the far bank, and caught sight of her at the end of a colonnade of beeches, a green tunnel floored with brown leaves and bluebells. He started running, keeping close to the trunks of the trees, ready to dodge behind one of them if she so much as turned her head.

Martin’s chase of her lasted another hour, and the farther she led him the more mysterious she became. He was utterly perplexed by the whole business, and astonished by her miraculous knowledge of the Forest ways. He became aware of a change in the green wilderness; the woods were more open, the glades more frequent, and stretches of grassland flowed here and there, all yellow with buttercups and shining like cloth of gold. It was a more spacious country, more beautiful, less savage, lush, deep, and mysterious, sheltered from the winds. There were yews and hollies here more ancient than he had ever seen. Great sweeps of young bracken covered the open slopes of the hills.

They climbed a long rise where old beech trees grew. Its solemn aisles opened westwards on a little secret valley. Water glimmered in the green lap of the valley, and for a moment Martin thought that he had struck one of the reaches of the river. But something that happened ahead of him brought Martin Valliant to earth, with his chin resting on the mossy root of a beech tree. Mellis had dismounted, and was tying her horse to a drooping bough. They had come to the end of their journey.

He saw her go forward under the shade of the great trees. There was caution in her movements. She kept well in the shadows, gliding from trunk to trunk, not hurrying, as though she wished to make sure that no human thing moved in the valley below her. Presently she seemed satisfied. Martin saw her walk out boldly into the open and pass out of sight below the slope of the hill.

Not till he had crawled to the edge of the beech wood did Martin Valliant realize what the valley held. A broad mere lay in a grassy hollow, shaded toward the north by willows, and ringed about with yellow flags and water herbs. An island seemed to float upon the water, all white with old fruit trees in bloom. A gray turret and the bare stone gable-ends of a house showed above the apple blossom. There was a little gate-house close to the water, but its roof was gone, and the bridge that had led to it ruinous. The charred rafters of a barn showed beyond the sweep of an ivy-covered wall. Martin could trace the suggestions of a garden, with old yew trees, hornbeam hedges all gone to top, and a broad terrace walk that looked as though it were paved with stone. The place had a still, sweet, tragic look, lying there in the deeps of the Forest, its fruit trees white with blossom, although no one had pruned them, and the fruit they bore would rot in the grass or be eaten by the birds.

Martin Valliant was so astonished by what he saw, so bewitched by the desolate beauty of the place, that he had almost forgotten Mellis. She had reached the edge of the water and was standing by a willow, looking across at the ruined house. A sudden awe seemed to steal into Martin’s eyes. Mystery! And she was the human part of it, wandering by Forest ways to this island of beautiful desolation. No chance quest had brought her to the place, and Martin, lying there with his chin on his hands, felt a strange stirring in his heart. Perhaps she had lied to him—but what then? The very thought of it quickened his compassion. In following her he had stumbled upon the real woman—a woman whose eyes were deep with unforgettable things.

The truth came to him like the opening of a book. Tags of gossip tossed to and fro across the refectory table at Paradise pieced themselves together. Woodmere, the Dales’ house, sacked and burned by Roger Bland of Troy Castle; old Dale with a spear through his body lying dead under an oak tree. Blood shed for the love of a red rose. Two children saved by a swineherd and shipped off in a fishing-boat from Gawdy Town. Woodmere rotting in the Forest, to please the Lord of Troy’s sneering and whimsical pride!

Mellis had wandered along to what had been the bridge. Two spans of it still stood, but the center arch had been thrown down, leaving a gap of twelve feet or more. Young trees had taken possession of the broken walls, and the bridge-head was choked with brambles. There was no way of crossing the gap save by thrusting a big beam or the trunk of a tree across it, and such a piece of bridge mending was wholly beyond a woman’s strength. Moreover, there was a second chasm to be crossed where the drawbridge had been worked from the gate-house, but the drawbridge was a thing of the past. Roger Bland had had it unchained and unbolted and dragged to Troy Castle as a trophy.

Martin Valliant saw her walk along the broken bridge and stand there baffled, and though there was the one obvious and most natural way of crossing the water, it never entered Martin’s head that she would choose it. She came back to the landward side, and he lost sight of her in a little hollow beside the bridge-head that was hidden by bushes and young trees. He was still wondering what she would do, and whether he had the courage to go down and confess himself and help her, when he saw her rise out of the green foam of the foliage like Venus rising out of the sea.

She had thrown off her clothes, and went as Mother Nature had made her, a beautiful white creature crowned by her dark hair. In looking at her Martin forgot that he was a man, forgot his vows, forgot that there was such a thing as sin. For there seemed no shame in her beauty, and in that white shape of hers kissed by the sun.

Beyond the bridge a little grassy headland jutted into the mere where the water was clear of weeds. Mellis made her way toward it, like Eve walking the earth before sin was born. She stepped down into the water, waded a pace or two, and then glided forward on her bosom, the water rippling over her shoulders. Thirty breast strokes earned her across. She climbed out at what had been an old mooring stage for the big flat-bottomed boat that had been used for fishing. For a moment Martin saw her stand white and straight in the sunlight; then her hands went up and her black hair came clouding down. It enveloped her like a cloak, hanging to the level of her knees, like night shrouding the day. She seemed to have no thought of being watched or spied upon; the place was a wilderness; she went as Nature made her.

Then she was lost among the orchard trees, whose bloom was as white as her body, and a great change came over Martin Valliant. He let his head drop on the root of a beech tree; he shut his eyes, spread his arms like a suppliant. In losing sight of her he had rediscovered himself, that striving, perplexed, mistrustful self nurtured on self-starvation and physical nothingness. A passion of wonder, shame, and doubt shook him. He lay prone at the feet of Nature, trying to see the face of his God through the smoke of a new sacrifice. Had he sinned, had he shamed himself? And yet a deep and passionate voice cried out in him, fiercely denying that he had erred. What wickedness was there in chancing to gaze upon a creature whom God had created, upon a beauty that was unsoiled? He strove with himself, with clenched hands and closed eyes.

And presently a great stillness seemed to fall upon his heart. It was like the silence of the dawn, born to be broken only by the singing of birds. He opened his eyes, looked about him at the green spaces, the blue sky, the water shining in the valley. What had happened to him? Why all this wrestling and anguish? Where was the thing that men called sin when earth and the heavens were so beautiful?

And what shame was there in the vision that he had seen?

He sat up, drew aside, and leaned against the trunk of the tree. The stillness still held in his heart, but somewhere a long way off he seemed to hear a voice singing. A great tenderness thrilled him. The earth was transfigured, bathed in a glory of a light. Never had he known such deep and mysterious exultation. He felt strong, stronger than death; he feared nothing; his heart was full of a sweet sound of singing.

Mellis never knew of the great thing that happened to Martin Valliant in that beech wood. She crossed the water, dressed herself, mounted her horse, and rode back through the Forest, followed by a man whose eyes shone and whose face had a kind of awed radiance. She never guessed that a great love haunted her through the green glooms, and that a man had discovered his own soul.

And when she reached the cross on the Black Moor, Martin Valliant was there, waiting. He had run three miles like a madman across country that he knew. She looked at him and his face astonished her—it was so strangely luminous, so strong, so human.

Chapter XIV

Toward dusk the same day a beggar came trudging over the moor. He was a most unclean and grotesquely ragged creature, almost too ragged to be genuine, nor had he the characteristic and unstudied gestures of the true vagrant who cannot let ten minutes pass without scratching some part of him. The fellow wore a dirty old hood that once had been lined with scarlet cloth. A white bandage covered his mouth and chin as though he had some foul disease that had to be hidden. His brown smock hung in tatters around his knees, and his wallet was such a thing of patches that no one could have told what color it had been in the beginning.

This ragamuffin scouted his way toward the chapelry with stolid circumspection. He seemed to have a liking for the gorse and a hatred of the heather; his love of cover led him a somewhat devious but successful course, in that he reached the top of the moor without Martin Valliant seeing him. Once there he crawled into a patch of furze, and so fitted himself under the ragged stems that he could see the chapel, cell, and rest-house and anyone who came and went. Mellis was sitting on the bench outside the rest-house, looking at nothing with sad and vacant eyes. Martin Valliant stood reading in the doorway of his cell.

The beggar had a particular interest in Martin’s movements, in that he wanted him out of the way. The afterglow had faded, and night was settling over the moor.

“The devil take that priest! They should have learned before that old Jude was sick. And this damnable business——”

The furze was pricking the back of his neck.

“A pest on the stuff! And I have to tell the poor wench——”

He saw Martin Valliant put down his book and come out of the cell with a bucket in his hand. He was going down to the spring for water. The man in the furze perked up like a bird.

“God bless him, he has a thirst, or believes in being clean.”

He crawled out as soon as Martin had disappeared over the edge of the hill, and went quickly toward the rest-house, making signs with his hand.

Now Martin Valliant, being in a mood when a man walks with his head among the stars, had loitered just over the edge of the hill, staring at a broom bush as though it were the miraculous bush of Moses. But Martin’s eyes did not see the yellow flowers. He was looking inwards at himself, and at some wonderful vision that had painted itself upon his memory.

Therefore he was near enough to hear Mellis cry out as though some one had stabbed at her in the dark.

His dreams were gone in a moment. He turned, dropped the bucket, head in the air, nostrils quivering, and began to run with great strides across the heather.

Then the sound of voices reached him, one of them speaking in short, agonized jerks. The other voice was answering in a cautious and half-soothing murmur; the other voice was a man’s.

Martin’s stride shortened; he faltered, paused, stopped dead, and then went on again, skirting the thorn hedge of the garden. It led him close to the back of the rest-house, and he went no farther.

He heard Mellis cry out:

“My God! Oh! my God!”

The man tried to calm her.

“Softly, Mistress Mellis, or that priest fellow may hear you. A man would rather cut his tongue out than bring you such news.”

“And you were with him?”

“Why, we had just turned out of the ‘Cock’ Tavern. The fellow dodged out of a dark alley behind us, and the knife was in before you could think of an oath. The bloody rogue went off at a run. I stayed with your brother.”

There was silence for a moment—a tense silence.

“Did he die there—in the gutter?”

The words were like the limping movements of a wounded dog.

“He was dead,” said the man softly, “before the watch came along. There will be a crowner’s quest, but we can keep a secret—for your sake.”

“My sake! What does it matter? Oh, if I but knew!”

“And that?”

“Who struck that blow.”

“Some hired beast.”

“I can guess that. But who ordered it—paid the blood money?”

The man seemed to hesitate.

“It has scared me, I grant you; one is afraid of a blank wall or a bush.”

“Roger Bland of Troy?”

“It may be that you have said it.”

He was in a hurry to go; his voice betrayed his restlessness.

“The Flemming is at work. Bide here for a day or two, Mistress Dale. It is time I disappeared.”

“Yes, go. Let me try and think.”

“Gawdy Town is too dangerous now.”

“Man, I am not afraid, but I think my heart is broken.”

He gabbled a few words of comfort, and by the silence that followed Martin guessed that he had fled.

The light in the west had faded to a steely grayness, and the stars were out. Martin Valliant stood there for a while, picking loose mortar from between the stones, his whole heart yearning to do something, he knew not what. He could hear no sound of weeping or of movement. The silence was utter, poignant, unbroken.

Suddenly he heard her speaking, and he knew that it was half to herself and half to God.

“So he is dead! Dear God—you have heard. Why did you suffer it? Oh, what a fool I am! Picked up in the gutter!”

Martin’s hands were clenched.

“Did I see the old place to-day? The sun was shining. Oh, dear God, why am I all alone? The boy is dead; you let him die. And I cannot bear it—I cannot bear it.”

Nor could Martin Valliant bear that lonely, wounded agony of hers. It was as though she were drowning in the waters of despair, and there was no one to leap in and save her.

Mellis stood leaning against the wall, her face turned toward it, her arms outspread against the rough stones. She did not hear Martin Valliant coming, but she felt a hand touch one of hers.

She twisted around with startled fierceness.

“Who touched me?”

She saw him recoil. It was so dark now that his face showed as a pale surface; she could not see his eyes.

“Martin Valliant.”

His voice was awed, humble.

“Do not be angry with me. I will go away if you wish it. I heard you cry out—and——”

She guessed in an instant that he had overheard everything; that touch of his hand upon hers had been like the mute, tentative touch of a dog’s cold muzzle. Her flash of anger melted away.

“It is you? How long——?”

“I was there—behind the rest-house. I had run up, hearing you cry out. I think it was God Who made me listen.”

“Ah, God is a great listener!”

She was quivering with bitter emotion.

“He listens, but He does not help. He has no pity. Yes, it is quite true; you know all that should have been kept secret. You know that I lied to you——”

Martin made the sign of the cross.

“I do not remember it,” he said.

“That I called myself Catharine Lovel—that I was vowed to silence, and on a pilgrimage!”

“I forgot all those things,” he answered, “when I heard the truth and your anguish.”

She covered her face with her hands.

“Now you will begin preaching a sermon.”

“God forbid,” he said; “I think that this night is teaching me that I was not born to be a priest.”

There was silence between them for a while. Martin Valliant did not move; he seemed set there like a statue. She could hear his deep breathing, a strangely human sound in the soft darkness.

She began to speak again.

“Perhaps you know that they murdered my father years ago, and now they have slain my brother. We were the Dales of Woodmere, and the Lord of Troy was our enemy. Why am I here? Why was my brother in Gawdy Town? Perhaps you can guess, if you are a man as well as a priest. We wanted our home and the lands that had been ours; we wanted revenge, we wanted a new king.”

She looked at him challengingly in the darkness.

“Now you know all. We were traitors to Richard Hunchback. We serve Henry Tudor. Now you can go to Troy Castle—if it pleases you—and tell the truth.”

His voice began to sound a deeper note.

“God’s curse be upon me if I do any such thing.”

He walked up and down, and then came back to her.

“Will you not sit down, Mistress Dale?”

“I have not the heart to feel weary.”

“It is very still and calm by the great cross up yonder. I will spread a cloak for you. We must speak of certain things, you and I.”

A new manhood spoke in him. She seemed to question it, and to wonder at the change in him.

“I am suspect, and have made you share my outlawry—is that it?”

He answered with sudden passion.

“No.”

She surrendered to him of a sudden.

“The cross? Oh, very well. What have you to say to me?”

“What a man with the heart of a man might say. Am I so poor a thing that I cannot take part in a quarrel?”

“Ah!”

He turned abruptly, went to the cell, and came back with a heavy winter cloak.

“The dew is heavy on such a night.”

“Yes.”

They walked side by side to the great cross, with a sudden and subtle sense of comradeship drawing them together.

Martin spread the cloak on the grass at the foot of the cross. She sat down with her back to the beam, and looked up at him in the darkness.

“You told me your man’s name—not the priest’s.”

“Valliant.”

“You are not the son of old Roger Valliant?”

“He was my father.”

Her eyes gave a gleam.

“Son of that old fire-eater! Strange!”

“He was a man of blood, my father.”

She looked at him with a new interest, a new curiosity. His bigness took on a different meaning.

“A great fighter and a fine man-at-arms, though he fought for pay. And he made a priest of you!”

Martin felt her veiled scorn of all men-women, and his flesh tingled.

“I have never questioned his wisdom.”

“Never yet! Have you ever heard the trumpets calling? But what am I saying? Yet men must fight, Father Martin, sometimes, or be dishonored.”

“It is possible,” he confessed.

“Bishops and abbots have ridden into battle before now.”

“True. The cause may sanctify the deed.”

Her bitterness returned of a sudden. She seemed to clasp her grief, and press her lips to it with fanatical passion.

“Son of old Valliant—listen. Your father would have understood these words of mine. Why do I not lie down and weep? Why do I thirst to go on living? Because my heart cries out against a great wrong—my wrong. Yes, I am a wild wolf—an eagle. This is a world of teeth and talons; your father knew it, and lived by his sword. And I tell you, Martin Valliant, that I shall fight to the death—hate to the death. My holy wine is the blood of my brother—and I am not ashamed.”

He stood swaying slightly, with a tumult, like the clashing of swords, in his brain.

“Does the soul of the father dwell in the son?” he asked himself.

He clenched his hands and answered her.

“You will tarry here, Mistress Dale, so long as you may please. No man shall lay a hand upon you. The Church can protect—with the sword of the spirit.”

By her silence he knew that his words rang hollow.

“I would rather have old Valliant’s sword,” she said grimly; “but I thank you, Father Martin. My need may be fierce, God knows!”

Chapter XV

Noble Vance, the Forest Warden, came riding into Paradise on his black horse, with two archers in russet and green following at his heels. He crossed the Rondel at the mill, and his scarlet coat went burning through the orchards and over the fields. Such common folk as saw him louted very low to the man, for, though he rode over Church lands, he was a fellow to be feared, being merciless and very cunning. Poachers and laborers whom he caught chasing the deer had but one thing to hope for from Noble Vance. He loved tying a man to a tree and thrashing him with his own whip, and the fellows he caught red-handed would rather have it so than be sent to Roger Bland of Troy Castle.

About a furlong from the priory gate the Forest Warden overtook Dom Geraint.

“The best of a May morning to you, man of God.”

“And God’s grace be upon you, defender of the deer!”

They were gossips, these two, men of animal energy who understood each other, and looked at life with the same shrewd cynicism. Their eyes met whimsically. Neither had any solid respect for the dignity of the other. Their appetites and prejudices were alike; they met on common ground and made life a gloating, full-blooded jest.

“You ride early, Master Warden.”

“All for the joy of being shrived by you, Dom Geraint.”

“Tut-tut—I am busy to-day. It would be a long affair.”

“Not so long, either; for you have only to name me any sin, good sir, and I will say that I have committed it.”

“What a mass of guilt is here—riding in scarlet!”

“The black coat has its red in the lining!”

They laughed in each other’s faces.

“You will come in and drink some of our ale?”

“Such brown Paradise is not to be despised. I have an hour to spare.”

“I will give you a penance: not to look at a woman for two months.”

“Fudge, good sir, I am out to tie one behind me on the saddle this very day.”

The archers were sent to the buttery hatch, while the prior’s parlor served Vance and Dom Geraint. Prior Globulus had ridden out on a white mule to visit one of his farms, and Geraint had no prejudices against sitting in the old man’s chair.

Vance drank to him.

“May you have the filling of it, dear gossip. Then Paradise will lack nothing.”

Geraint gave blow for blow.

“And no man will stay me when I go a-hunting, whether it be the red deer——”

“Or others. You have a park of your own, man.”

“And you—the whole Forest.”

“Thin, sir—very thin. Game is scarce, though I am trapping a fine young doe this very day. And here is the jest, gossip Geraint; she has taken cover in one of your thickets.”

Geraint looked hard at Vance over the top of his mug.

“Here—in Paradise! Rabbits, man! I know everything that happens in Paradise.”

“Who doubts it? But this is a great gibe, with that woolly-noddled saint of yours serving as father confessor!”

“I miss the scent, my friend.”

“You and I can keep each other’s secrets. There is some trouble brewing about here, though I have not got to the bottom of it as yet. Old Dale’s cubs had sneaked back out of France; we sighted them in Gawdy Town. We have the young man’s brush, and now I am after the girl. She is going to ride to Troy with me.”

Geraint’s black eyes were on the alert.

“I know nothing of all this, gossip. Where are you going to find the lady?”

“On the Black Moor.”

“What!”

“Under the protection of St. Florence and Brother Martin, and taking her sleep in your rest-house.”

Geraint gaped like a great bird.

“Blood and wounds, but this is—miraculous!”

He began to laugh—deep, gloating laughter.

“Dear gossip, I have not heard such monstrous good news for many months. Brother Martin playing the nurse to a woman! Why, sir, we sent him one, and he would have none of her, the pious fool!”

“I dare say Brother Martin could not help himself.”

“How so?”

“The young woman arrived, claimed St. Florence’s charity, and friend Martin had to give it. I could swear he has kept the door of his cell shut all the while, and only gone out after dark.”

Geraint’s mouth showed its typical snarl.

“It’s probable, most probable, but such a tale does not suit us, good sir.”

“What has the fool done that you hate him so heartily?”

“He is too good for this world, Vance; I would that you could help us to be rid of him.”

The red man grinned.

“Why, anything in reason! One bruises one’s toe against these incorruptible lumps. And your toe may be swollen, holy friend.”

“Have done. This is serious to us.”

“Speak out, then; confess to me, Dom Geraint; I am no suckling.”

Geraint poured out more ale.

“But for Abbot Hilary we should not care a snap of the fingers.”

“Every man has a man over him, gossip, even if it be only a grave-digger. My Lord of Troy—well, I would not lose Roger Bland’s good-will. I should be a broken man in a month, and I know it. You are afraid of this pup’s yelping?”

Geraint nodded, and sat biting the nail of his thumb.

“Teach him to gnaw bones.”

“We have tried it.”

“But here is a pretty tale that could be told. Why, souse me in vinegar, one only has to lie hard enough in this world—see things crooked! Supposing I and my two fellows dream that we found——”

He painted the picture with a few coarse flourishes, and Geraint wriggled in his chair.

“Great, sweet gossip—great! But supposing he calls for a court?”

“Let him have it. He can call no witnesses. Madame Mellis will not be forthcoming, and we shall be ready to swear—for the jest of it. Of course a gold piece or two for my fellows! These little mazes please me, gossip; brains—brains! I’m tickled by a rebus! Now—what of it?”

Geraint stretched out one of his hairy paws.

“A bargain, Vance.”

“I’ll hold the debt over you, and call it some day. Prayers put up for me in Paradise—hey! No, a priest may be useful on occasions.”

Half an hour later he called his men, mounted his horse, and set out for the Black Moor.

Chapter XVI

It was Martin Valliant who prayed for the soul of Gilbert Dale, and not Mellis his sister.

She was bitter and fierce, and wounded.

“I will not ask God or the saints for anything—no, nor Mother Mary. My brother had no sin upon him. Let them look to their own.”

So Martin tolled the bell, lit candles, and chanted a death Mass, yet all the while he was thinking of the rebel woman out yonder and of the despair in her eyes. Nature was striking shrewd blows at Martin’s simplicity, using the lecherous treachery of Geraint and the bloody heartlessness of the Lord of Troy to prove to him that there are great violences on earth, lusts and cruelties and loves that no mere saint can conquer. Even Mellis’s wild words of revolt sounded more real and human than the patter of his prayers. He knelt a long while in silence, wondering, asking himself grim questions. How would his father, old Valliant, have acted? Would he have put up a prayer, or donned harness and taken the sword?

Mellis would not enter the chapel or kneel before the altar. She went wandering over the moor, recklessly, with that fever of anguish and hatred burning in her blood. She wanted to hurt those men who had killed her brother. She wanted to take the Lord of Troy and give him to some strong man to be throttled. All the love and tenderness that were in her were like perfumes thrown upon the flames.

Wearied at last, she came back to the great cross, passed under its shadow, and entering the rest-house, lay down upon her bed. The room was cool and silent, with its massive walls of stone and thickly thatched roof, and not a sound disturbed her; but she could neither sleep nor rest because of the knowledge of the peril that threatened her. Mellis felt herself betrayed, hunted, and her instincts warned her that she would be shown no mercy. She did not believe that her brother’s death had come about casually, or that he had been stabbed wantonly or in error. The shadow of Troy Castle loomed over her. She was fey that morning; the Forest whispered a warning.

About noon Martin Valliant took his spade and went out to dig in the garden. He was shy of Mellis, shy of her despair, and the new manhood that had been born in him chafed and raged at the vows that held it. The blood of old Roger Valliant was alive in him; he was more the son of his father than he knew.

The garden hedge shut Martin in upon himself, and he could see nothing of the moor, so that one of Noble Vance’s archers was able to come scouting right to the foot of the great cross and creep away again unnoticed. The fellow went back to a heathy hollow where the Forest Warden waited, sitting on his black horse in the sun.

“The woman is there, lording. I saw her in the doorway of the rest-house.”

“And the monk?”

“I heard the sound of a spade in the garden.”

“Good. Now listen to me, you men. There is no cause to be too gentle with the jade; they say she is a fierce wench, and may carry a knife, and a knife in an angry woman’s hands is not to be despised.”

“Will you take her, or shall we, lording?”

“We’ll see what we shall see.”

Martin Valliant was just turning a new spit when he heard a sound that made him raise his head and listen. A horse was moving somewhere; he heard the thudding of hoofs and the jingle of a bridle. The horse came on at a canter, and a man’s voice shouted an order.

“A view—a view! Run, Jack; head her off, or she’ll have the door shut in our faces.”

Then Martin heard Mellis cry out.

“Martin Valliant—Martin Valliant!”

Something seemed to twist itself in his head and snap like a broken bowstring. He plucked his spade out of the ground and went running, his nostrils agape, his eyes hard as blue glass.

And this was what Martin saw when he pushed through the gate and rounded the corner of the thorn hedge. Mellis had her back to the wall of the rest-house, and a light dagger in her hand. A man in red was sucking a bloody wrist, and two archers were crouching behind him like dogs waiting to be let loose.

Martin saw the man in red raise the butt of his riding whip and strike at Mellis, shouting savagely:

“Break the jade—break her!”

Then Martin Valliant went mad. He was no more than the male thing answering the wild call of its mate. He saw Noble Vance’s whip strike Mellis’s arm.

It was all over in twenty seconds, for that spade was a grim weapon whirled like a battle-ax by old Valliant’s son. The two archers had stood and gaped, too astonished to think of bending a bow. One of them, indeed, had plucked out a knife, but he was dead before he could use it.

Vance the Forest Warden lay all huddled up, grinning horribly, gashed to the brain pulp. The other archer had taken to his heels, mounted his master’s horse, and galloped off with the fear of God in him. And Martin Valliant was standing leaning on his spade, his face deathly white, his eyes staring at the dead men on the grass.

Chapter XVII

For a long while Martin Valliant neither moved nor spoke, and Mellis watched him in silence. His rage had passed, and a kind of wondering horror dulled his eyes. He was afraid of his own handiwork, this death that he had brought into the world, these bloody things at his feet. And yet they fascinated him, for there were two men struggling in Martin Valliant—the poor monk and the soldier.

The monk in him, being the elder, stood shocked to the heart, and most tragically dismayed. Such a bloody deed as this seemed the end of everything, even though it had been done in generous wrath. Martin’s monastic soul shrank away, horrified, covering its face with its hands. He had spilled blood, he was a murderer, he had sinned against the God Who had given him life.

For a while the monk in him possessed his whole consciousness, but there was a man stronger and fiercer than the monk waiting to be heard. The soul of old Valliant lived more nobly in his son, old Valliant who had looked on dead men with the pity of a soldier, but who would have had no pity for such a fellow as Noble Vance.

“Martin—Martin Valliant!”

He heard her voice, at first very soft and faint, like a voice from a distance. He had not looked at her since he had struck Vance down.

Slowly he seemed to drag himself from staring at his own handiwork. He turned his head, and her eyes met his.

Once more the soul of that tragic day astonished him, for there was a strange, shining light in Mellis’s eyes. Her lips seemed to tremble; her throat showed proud and triumphant. Here was no shame, no horror, but a something that gloried, an exultation that was near to tears.

He stared at her as though he had been dead and she had called him back to life.

Mellis stretched out her hands as though to crown him.

“Martin Valliant—Martin Valliant.”

Again the note of exultation sounded. He beheld a new and human glory in her eyes.

“God forgive me.”

He dropped on his knees, and covered his face with his right arm.

The woman in her rushed instantly to comfort him.