class="pindent">“Madame, nothing, save that grey twilight follows a red sunset. Let us not waste words on each other. I am not what you believe; you may not have been what you seem.”

She saw the elder woman’s face redden, her nostrils dilate, her mouth grow pinched and thin.

“Enough. I will leave you to my kitchen wench. She will bring you your food, and you can vent your sauciness on her; she will know how to answer properly to suit the colour of your gown.”

The dame tried to outstare Isoult, but her eyelids flickered, nor did the flush die out of her face till she had relocked the door upon this strolling jade.

In the hall she found Fulk throwing some brushwood on the hot ashes of the night’s fire. An instant flash of Margaret Ferrers’ eyes showed her jealous, doubting temper. She strove to become mistress of herself again—the cold woman whose heart had chastened itself through many years of dread and suspense and perilous pride.

Fulk looked round sharply, challenging her:

“Well, mother?”

She made an effort to put the heat of malice out of her mouth, and in the main she succeeded.

“I have little that needs saying. Trust a woman to see through a woman. We must feed the jade till the swainmote meets.”

“Who is she?”

“I neither know nor care.”

“Whence has she come?”

“I did not ask her. Such wenches come from nowhere and go nowhere, till the Father of Lies takes his own.”

The son looked thoughtful.

“You are no wiser than when you went in?”

“Yes, wiser; wise enough.”

He seemed to consider the matter as though all the authority were his.

“Give me the key, mother. I must read this rebus.”

Her face softened. Some instinct made her afraid, and yet urged her to dissemble her fear, for she was loath to let her son go into Isoult’s chamber.

“Do not vex your head about the jade, Fulk. I will see to it.”

He said quietly:

“Mother, the key.”

Her eyelids flickered as she looked at him with a troubled recognition of something that challenged her inmost conscience, for she saw, more suddenly than ever before, a likeness both in body and mind that was princely and almost terrible. His yea and nay were serenely imperious; he soared at a royal height and stooped to take his desire.

Margaret Ferrers gave him the key and stood stiff and mute, listening to his footsteps as he went along the passage leading to Isoult’s room.

The place had a narrow window that was barred with iron, but the morning sun poured in through it, and Isoult herself stood in the sunlight. She had let down her hair, and was combing it with an ivory comb.

Fulk paused in the doorway like a man who has stumbled on a milk-white hind couched in a secret thicket. Nor was the woman blind. She had thrown her green cloak and her sky-blue cote-hardie on a stool, the cote-hardie all embroidered with silver suns and stars, with green tippets at the elbows and buttons of blue enamel down the front. Fulk found her in her shift and kirtle, the latter of holly green, fitting close to the figure, and showing off the curves of hip and bosom. She wore a girdle of red leather with a gypsire hanging from it. Her shoes were of red leather, her hose of grass-green silk.

Fulk paused by the door, a little dazzled by the blackness of the woman’s hair, the whiteness of her throat, and all the rich colours of her garments. A strange hunting dress, and a strange huntress! Moreover, there was a world of raillery and laughter deep in her eyes. She had seemed pale by moonlight, but this morning her lips were very red and she was a creature of colour, of white curves, and of haunting health.

“Good-day to you, Messire Fulk.”

She looked at him steadily, provokingly, and went on combing her hair. And standing there, one hand on the door-post, he essayed to catechise her, only to be met with a kind of railing silence. It was a new notion to him that a woman should set out to treat him as though he were a clown and a fool.

“Take your chance or lose it. I am in no temper to be kept like a hawk on a perch.”

She ran the comb through her hair deliberately and at her leisure.

“If I had anything to say, Messire Fulk, I should have said it long ago. One thing: do not send your mother to me; we shall quarrel, and I have a devil’s tongue. Now, I will not hinder you——”

She turned her back and appeared busied with gathering up her hair ready for the silver net.

“You have nothing to say?”

She gave him one glance over her shoulder.

“No, Messire Fulk, nothing.”

He went out with a stiff face, conscious that he had fared no better than his mother.