Love Among the Ruins. Warwick Deeping

she said, thrusting up her hands into the night, "the cry of the forest, the voice of the winter wind. What say they but 'vengeance--vengeance--vengeance'?"

      II

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      Dawn came vaguely in a veil of mist. A heavy dew lay scintillant upon the grass; a great silence covered the woods. The trees stood grim and gigantic with dripping boughs in a vapoury atmosphere, and there seemed no augury of sunlight in the blind grey sky.

      A rough hovel under a fir, used for the storing of wood, had given Yeoland and the harper shelter for the night. The sole refuge left to them by fire, the hut had served its purpose well enough, for grief is not given to grumbling over externals in the extremity of its distress.

      The girl Yeoland was astir early with the first twitter of the birds in the boughs overhead. Jaspar had made her a couch of straw, and she had lain there tossing to and fro with no thought of sleep. The moon had sunk early over the edge of the world, and heavy darkness had wrapped her anguish close about her soul, mocking her with the staring of a dead face. The burning tower had ceased to torch her vigil towards dawn; yet there had been no fleeing from the pale candour of the night.

      A slim, white-faced woman she stood shivering in the doorway of the hovel. Her eyes were black and lustrous--swift, darting eyes full of dusky fire and vivid unrest. Her mouth ran a red streak, firm above her white chin. Her hair gleamed like sable steel. The world was cold about her for the moment, dead and inert as her own heart. As she stood there, fine and fragile as gossamer, the very trees seemed to weep for her with the dawning day.

      Some hundred paces from the hut, a cloud of smoke mingled with the mist that hung about the blackened walls of the forest tower. Its windows were blind and frameless to the sky; a zone of charred wood and reeking ashes circled its base. The mist hung above it like a ghostly memory. The place looked desolate and pitiful enough in the meagre light.

      The girl Yeoland watched the incense of smoke wreathing grey spirals overhead, melting symbolic--into nothingness. The pungent scent of the ruin floated down to her, and became a recollection for all time. This blackened shell had been a home to her, a bulwark, nay, a cradle. Sanguine life had run ruddy through its heart. How often had she seen its grey brow crowned with gold by the mystic hierarchy of heaven. She had found much joy there and little sorrow. A wrinkled face had taught her these many years to cherish the innocence of childhood. All this was past; the present found her bankrupt of such things. The place had become but a coffin, a charnel-house for the rotting bones of love.

      As she brooded in the doorway, the smite of a spade came ringing to her on the misty air. Terse and rhythmic, it was like the sound of Time plucking the hours from the Tree of Life. She looked out over the glade, and saw Jaspar the harper digging a shallow grave under an oak.

      She went and watched him, calmly, silently, with the utter quiet of a measureless grief. There was reason in this labour. It emphasised reality; helped her to grip the present. As the brown earth tumbled at her feet, she remembered how much she would bury in that narrow forest grave.

      The man Jaspar was a ruddy soul, like a red apple in autumn. His strong point was his loyalty, a virtue that had stiffened with the fibres of his heart. He could boast neither of vast intelligence, nor of phenomenal courage, but he had a conscience that had made gold of his whole rough, stunted body. Your clever servant is often a rogue; in the respect of apt villainy, the harper was a fool.

      He ceased now and again from his digging, hung his hooked chin over his spade, and snuffed the savour of the clean brown earth. He thrust curt, furtive glances up into the girl's face as she watched him, as though desirous of reading her humour or her health.

      "You are weary," she said to him anon, looking blankly into the trench.

      The man wagged his head.

      "Have ye broken fast? There is bread and dried fruit in the hut, and a pitcher of water."

      "I cannot eat--yet," she answered him.

      He sighed and continued his digging. The pile of russet earth increased on the green grass at her feet; the trench deepened. Jaspar moistened his palms, and toiled on, grunting as he hove his libations of soil over his shoulder. Presently he stood up again to rest.

      "What will you do, madame?" he asked her, squinting at the clouds.

      "Ride out."

      "And whither?"

      "Towards Gilderoy--as yet."

      "Ah, ah, a fair town and strong. John of Brissac is madame's friend. Good. Have we money?"

      "Some gold nobles."

      They waxed silent again, and in a while the grave lay finished. 'Twas shallow, but what of that! It gave sanctuary enough for the dead.

      They went together, and gazed on the sleeping man's face. It was grey, but very peaceful, with no hint of horror thereon. The eyes were closed, and dew had starred the white hair with a glistening web. Yeoland knelt and kissed the forehead. She shivered and her hands trembled, but she did not weep.

      So they carried the Lord Rual between them, for he was a spare man and frugal of frame, and laid him in the grave beneath the oak. When they had smoothed his hair, and crossed his hands upon his breast, they knelt and prayed to the Virgin and the saints that in God's heaven he might have peace. The wind in the boughs sang a forest requiem.

      When Yeoland had looked long at the white face in the trench, she rose from her knees, and pointed Jaspar to his spade. The harper took the measure of her mind. When she had passed into the shadows of the trees, he mopped his face, and entered on his last duty to the dead. It was soon sped, soon ended. A pile of clean earth covered the place. Jaspar banked the grave with turf, shouldered his spade, and returned to the hovel.

      He found the girl Yeoland seated on a fallen tree in the forest, her ebon hair and apple-green gown gleaming under the sweeping boughs. Her cheeks were white as windflowers, her eyes full of a swimming gloom. She raised her chin, and questioned the man mutely with a look that smouldered under her arched brows.

      "Jaspar?"

      "Madame----"

      "Have you entered the tower?"

      The man's wrinkled face winced despite his years.

      "Would you have me go?" he asked her in a hoarse undertone.

      She looked into the vast mazes of the woods, shuddered in thought, and was silent. Her mouth hardened; the desire melted from her eyes.

      "No," she said anon, turning her hood forward, and drawing a green cloak edged with sables about her, "what would it avail us? Let us sally at once."

      A little distance away, their horses, that had been hobbled over night, stood grazing quietly on a patch of grass under the trees. One was a great grey mare, the other a bay jennet, glossy as silk. Jaspar caught them. He was long over the girths and bridles, for his hands were stiff, and his eyes dim. When he returned, Yeoland was still standing like a statue, staring at the blackened tower reeking amid the trees.

      "Truly, they have burnt the anguish of it into my heart with fire," she said, as Jaspar held her stirrup.

      "God comfort you, madame!"

      "Let us go, Jaspar, let us go."

      "And whither, lady?"

      "Where revenge may lead."

      The day brightened as they plunged down into the forest. A light breeze rent the vapours, and a shimmer of sunlight quivered through the haze. The tree-tops began to glisten gold; and there was life in the deepening promise of the sky. The empty woods rolled purple on the hills; the greensward shone with a veil of gossamer; the earth grew glad.

      The pair had scant burden of speech upon their lips that morning. They were still benumbed by the violence of the night, and death still beckoned to their souls. Fate had smitten them with such