Love Among the Ruins. Warwick Deeping

is satisfied?"

      She sucked in her breath through her red lips, and was mute.

      "Leave matters to my discretion. You there, in the brown smock, fall back twenty paces. Madame, I wait for you. Let us go cheek by jowl."

      The man wheeled his horse, shook his spear, hurled a glance backward over his shoulder into the woods. There was no gainsaying him for the moment. Yeoland, bending to necessity, sent Jaspar loitering, while she flanked the black destrier with her brown jennet. She debated keenly within herself whither this adventure could be leading her, as she rode on with this unknown rider into the wilds.

      The man in the red cloak was wondrous mute at first, an iron pillar of silence gleaming under the trees. The girl knew that he was watching her from behind his salade, for she caught often the white glimmer of his stare. He bulked largely in the descending gloom, a big man deep of chest, with shoulders like the broad ledges of some sea-washed rock. He was richly appointed both as to his armour and his trappings; to Yeoland his shield showed a blank face, and he carried no crest or token in his helmet.

      They had ridden two furlongs or more before the man stepped from his pedestal of silence. He had been studying the girl with the mood of a philosopher, had seen her stark, strained look, the woe in her eyes, the firm closure of her lips. The strong pride of grief in her had pleased him; moreover he had had good leisure to determine the character of her courage. His first words were neither very welcome to the girl's ears nor productive of great comfort, so far as her apprehensions were concerned. Bluntly came the calm challenge from the casque.

      "Daughter of Rual of Cambremont, you have changed little these five years."

      Yeoland gave the man a stare. Seeing that his features were screened by his helmet, the glance won her little satisfaction. She knew that he was watching her to his own profit, and her discovery, for the reflex look she had flashed at him, must have told him all he desired, if he had any claim to being considered observant. There was that also in the tone and tenor of his words that implied that he had ventured no mere tentative statement, but had spoken to assure her that her name and person were not unknown to him. Acting on the impression, she tacitly confessed to the justice of his charge.

      "Palpably," she said, "my face is known to you."

      "Even so, madame."

      "How long will you hold me at a disadvantage?"

      "Is ignorance burdensome?"

      She imagined of a sudden that the man was smiling behind his beaver. Being utterly serious herself, she discovered an illogical lack of sympathy in the stranger's humour. Moreover she was striving to spell Gambrevault from the alphabet of word and gesture, and to come to an understanding with the doubts of the moment.

      "Messire," she began.

      "Madame," he retorted.

      "Are you mere stone?"

      For answer he lapsed into sudden reflection.

      "It is five years ago this Junetide," he said, "since the King and the Court came to Gilderoy."

      "Gilderoy?"

      "You know the town, madame?"

      She stared back upon a sudden vision of the past, a past gorgeous with the crimson fires of youth. That Junetide she had worn a new green gown, a silver girdle, a red rose in her hair. There had been jousting in the Gilderoy meadows, much braying of trumpets, much splendour, much pomp of arms. She remembered the scent and colour of it all; the blaze of tissues of gold and green, purple and azure. She remembered the flickering of a thousand pennons in the wind, the fair women thronging the galleries like flowers burdening a bowl. The vision came to her undefiled for the moment, a dream-memory, calm as the first pure pageant of spring.

      "And you, messire?" she said, with more colour of face and soul.

      "Rode in the King's train."

      "A noble?"

      "Do I bulk for a cook or a falconer?"

      "No, no. Yet you remember me?"

      "As it were yesterday, walking in the meadows at your father's side--your father, that Rual who carried the banner when the King's men stormed Gaerlent these forty years ago. Not, madame, that I followed that war; I was a mass of swaddling-clothes puking in a cradle. So we grow old."

      The girl's face had darkened again on the instant. The man in the red cloak saw her eyes grow big of pupil, her lips straightened into a colourless line. She held her head high, and stared into the purple gloom of the woods. Memories were with her. The present had an iron hand upon her heart.

      "Time changes many things," he said, with a discretion that desired to soften the silence; "we go from cradle to throne in one score years, from life to clay in a moment. Pay no homage to circumstance. The wave covers the rock, but the granite shows again its glistening poll when the water has fallen. A Hercules can strangle Fate. As for me, I know not whether I have soared in the estimation of heaven; yet I can swear that I have lost much of the vagabond, sinful soul that straddled my shoulders in the past."

      There was a warm ruggedness about the man, a flippant self-knowledge, that touched the girl's fancy. He was either a strong soul, or an utter charlatan, posing as a Diogenes. She preferred the former picture in her heart, and began to question him again with a species of picturesque insolence.

      "I presume, messire," she said, "that you have some purpose in life. From my brief dealings with you, I should deem you a very superior footpad. I gather that it is your intention to rob me. I confess that you seem a gentleman at the business."

      The man of the red cloak laughed in his helmet.

      "To be frank, madame," he said, "you may dub me a gatherer of taxes."

      "Explain."

      "Being unfortunates and outcasts from the lawful ways of life, my men and I seek to remedy the injustice of the world by levying toll on folk more happy than ourselves."

      "Then you condemn me as fortunate?"

      "Your defence, madame."

      The girl smiled with her lips, but her eyes were hard and bright as steel.

      "I might convince you otherwise," she said, "but no matter. Why should I be frank with a thief, even though he be nobly born?"

      "Because, madame, the thief may be of service to the lady."

      "I have little silver for your wallet."

      "Am I nothing but a money-bag!"

      She looked up at him with a straight stare; her voice was level, even imperious.

      "Put up your vizor," she said to him.

      The man in the black harness hesitated, then obeyed her. She could see little of his face, however, save that it was bronzed, and that the eyes were very masterful. She ventured further in the argument, being bent on fathoming the baser instincts of the business.

      "Knight of the red shield," she said.

      "Madame?"

      "I ask you an honest question. If you would serve me, speak the truth, and let me know my peril. Are you the Lord Flavian of Gambrevault, or no?"

      The man never hesitated an instant. There was no wavering to cast doubt upon his sincerity, or upon his intelligence as a liar.

      "No, madame," he answered her, "I am not the Lord of Gambrevault and Avalon, and may I, for the sake of my own neck, never come single-handed within his walls. I have an old feud with the lords of Gambrevault, and when the chance comes, I shall settle it heavily to my credit. If you have any ill to say of the gentleman, pray say it, and be happy in my sympathy."

      "Ha," she said, with a sudden flash of malice, "I would give my soul for that fellow's head."

      "So," quoth the man, with a keen look, "that would be a most delectable bargain."

      IV