busy strut of the townsman. Now and again his profile was sharply outlined for her—a straight, stark profile with firm lips and a thrustful chin.

Presently she began to murmur a song, and the murmur grew into idle, irresponsible singing. She sang in an inward, dreamy voice, the notes flowing out smoothly like water from a marble conduit. It was a rich voice, capable of a delicious flux of sound, subtle, promising many emotions. Fulk kept his guard, though she sang as though it was as natural for her to sing as to breathe. This voice of hers might bring him adventures, brisk blows, and a sore head.

“Sing,” said he; “sing as you please. But if you sing any rascal within reach of this short sword of mine he’ll not bless your music.”

“I sing to please myself, good sir. Listen:

“Good words, Master Fulk—hey?”

“Why sing about maids with golden hair? And roses and violets don’t bloom together. Make a song about a hawk, or a bow, or a sword.”

“Some day, if it please you, I will sing of the sword, and perhaps of a broomstick. Raw apples should not grumble at sugar.”

Below them in a little valley between oak woods the White Lodge showed up under the moon. It was a great, low house of black beams and white plaster, thatched so thickly with heather that the shaggy eaves were two feet thick. The White Lodge lay in the lap of a narrow meadow, with stables, barns, and outbuildings clustered behind it, their steep roofs, black ridged, looking like the roofs of a little town. The oak woods made a dark shelter about the silver sheen of the meadowland. By the orchard a stew pond blinked at the moon. Stout palisades of rough timber shut in the house, outbuildings, courtyard, and garden.

Isoult of the Rose stood at gaze.

“I see the cage,” said she. “Tell me, will you let the bird go—or cage it?”

“The caged thrush sings on a sunny morning.”

“But a wild bird mopes.”

“Perhaps some of our old worthies will open the door.”

As they went on down into the valley the moon popped once more behind a cloud, and Isoult’s face seemed to grow dark and brooding. She moved beside Fulk of the Forest, mute, solemn, distraught, her eyes looking into the distance where the great downs lay like faint shadows against the sky. A mood of mystery held her, the sadness of foreseeing dolour and pain and blood and the snarling mouths of furious men.

Three old yew trees grew by the gate in the meadow fence, and Isoult paused there and gripped Fulk’s arm. Her white face looked into his, and he could see a gleaming inward light shining from her eyes.

“Consider, consider, I charge you. I shall bring you woe.”

He smiled in her eyes.

“A witch’s trick; an old woman’s warning!”

“If you and I were old I might have no pity. I give you your choice.”

“You chose for me when you came a-hunting,” he said laconically. “I am the friend of the deer.”

CHAPTER III

With the air of one who shakes off all ultimate responsibility with a shrug of the shoulders, she followed Fulk through the gate in the palisade.

“Oh, my good bachelor,” she said to herself, “you are likely to have your throat cut because of this, and someone will thrust a torch into yonder thatch. The dice cannot serve both players at one throw.”

The White Lodge loomed up over them, its long front frowning with black beams. The shaggy eaves threw a band of dense shadow, and the upper storey overhung the lower, being carried out on oak brackets and great carved corner posts. A path of rough stones sunk in the ground led to the porch, with the oak door studded with iron nails and hung on hand-wrought strap-hinges. There were beds of herbs, a grass plot, and a few rose bushes in front of the house; also a sundial set on a stone pillar.

Fulk knocked loudly with the pommel of his short sword. He and Isoult stood together in the gloom of the porch, so close that they could have touched each other; yet neither spoke, but listened to the sound of each other’s breathing. A tacit sense of antagonism possessed them. The man mistrusted the woman; the woman thought the man an obstinate fool.

They heard someone stirring within. There was an iron grille in the door, and the little shutter that closed it was shot back. A man’s voice bellowed a challenge as though he were bawling at a disobedient hound:

“Who’s there?”

The voice seemed to make a draught in the porch, and the high wooden palisade echoed it back.

“Open to us, John.”

The bars were withdrawn, and the door opened.

“A catch, master, surely!”

“Nothing to boast of. Get a light.”

The fellow made way for them, and went to light a torch at the embers that still glowed on the round hearth in the centre of the hall. He yawned hugely and scratched his head, the torch, as it flared up, throwing on the wall a large and shadowy travesty of a round head and a jogging elbow. Fulk rebarred the door, and the woman Isoult went to warm herself before the glowing ashes.

The forester turned, yawning in her face; but astonishment proved stronger than the incipient yawn.

“Strike me bloody—a woman!”

He held the torch high, and put his face near to hers. His breath, and the sodden hardness of his eyes told her that he was too fond of the mead horn.

“Hey, you hen-harrier! Master, it be a woman.”

Fulk turned on him fiercely.

“Kennel up, you fool of a sot! Put the torch in a bracket. Now, go and fetch us a jug of cider and some bread and honey. Hurry!”

The man blinked and went off yawning, but Fulk called him back before he reached the door leading towards the kitchen quarters.

“Dame Ferrers is abed?”

“These three hours, master.”

“Good. Bring the cider, bread and honey, and then go and set up the truckle bed in the store-room, and get clean straw.”

They were left alone together. Fulk pointed her to a stool by the fire.

“My mother and her wench are abed. They shall look to you to-morrow.”

She nodded, and said nothing, but stole a glance at him from under her hood. The smoky flare of the solitary torch was even more baffling than the moonlight, and Fulk was standing, half turned to the light, and examining the two halves of the bow he had taken from her, his face hard, inscrutable, and murky.

“This bow was not made in these parts.”

“It may tell you