dame duessa had come to avalon, having heard certain whisperings of gilderoy, and of a golden-haired astarte who kept house there. dame duessa was a proud woman and a passionate, headstrong as a reformer, jealous as a parish priest. she boasted a great ancestry and a great name, and desires and convictions in keeping. she was a woman who loved her robe cupboard, her jewel-case, and her bed. moreover, she pretended some affection for the lord flavian her husband, perhaps arrogance of ownership, seeing that dame duessa was very determined to keep him in bonded compact with herself. she suspected that the man did not consider her a saint, or worship her as such. yet, termagant that she was, dame duessa could suffer some trampling of empty sentiment, provided fate did not rob her of her share in the broad demesne and rent-roll of gambrevault.

avalon was a castle of ten towers, linked by a strong curtain wall, and built about a large central court and garden. a great moat circled the whole, a moat broad and silvery as a lake, with water-lilies growing thick in the shallows. beyond the moat, sleek meadows tufted with green rushes swept to the gnarled piers of the old oaks that vanguarded the forest. the black towers slumbered in a mist of green, girded with sheeny water, tented by the azure of a southern sky.

dame duessa, being a lady of silks and tissues, did not love the place with all her soul. avalon of the orchards was dull, and smacked of arcady; it was far removed from that island of fair sin, lauretia, the king's city. moreover, the lord flavian and his ungallant gentlemen held rigorously to the northern turrets, leaving her to lodge ascetically in her rich chamber in a southern tower.

her husband contrived to exile himself as far as castle avalon could suffer him. if the pair went to mass, they went separately, with the frigid hauteur of an athanasius handing an aryus over to hell. when they hunted they rode towards opposite stars. no children had chastened them, pledges of heaven-given life. the lady duessa detested ought that hinted at caudle, swaddling-clothes, and cradles. moreover, all avalon seemed in league with the lord flavian. knights, esquires, scullions, horse-boys swore by him as though he were a bayard. dame duessa could rely solely on a prig of a page, and a lady-in-waiting who wore a wig, and perhaps on fra balthasar, the dominican.

meanwhile, the lord of avalon had been putting forth his penitence in stone and timber, and an army of craftsmen from geraint. the glade in cambremont wood rang to the swing of axes and the hoarse groaning of the saw. the tower had been purged of its ashes, its rooms retimbered, its casements filled with glass. a chapel was springing into life under the trees; the cleverest masons of the south were at work upon its pillars and its arches. fra balthasar, the dominican, held sway over the whole, subtle in colour and the carving of stone. flavian could have found no better pander to his penitence. rose nobles had been squandered. frescoes, jewel bright, were to blaze out upon the walls. the vaulted roof was to be constellated with glimmering gold stars, shining from skies of purple and azure.

to turn to fulviac's great cliff hid in the dark depths of the forest of pines. the disloyal chaff of the kingdom was wafted thither day by day, borne on the conspiring breeze. the forest engulfed all comers and delivered them like ghosts into fulviac's caverns. an army might have melted into the wilds, and the countryside have been none the wiser. amid the pines and rocks of the cliffs there were marchings and countermarchings, much shouldering of pikes and ordering of companies. veterans who had fought the infidels under wenceslaus, drilled the raw levies, and inculcated with hoarse bellowings the rudiments of military reason. they were rough gentlemen, and fulviac stroked them with a gauntlet of iron. they were to attempt liberty together, and he demonstrated to them that such freedom could be won solely by discipline and soldierly concord. the rogues grumbled and swore behind his back, but were glad in their hearts to have a man for master.

to speak again of the girl yeoland. that march night she had met fulviac over the wreckage of the broken gate, and had made a profession of the truth, so far, she said, as she could conjecture it. she had been long in the forest, had returned to the cliff to find the guards slain, and the lord flavian gone. by some device he had escaped from his shackles, slain the men, and fled by the northern postern. the woman made a goodly pretence of vexation of spirit over the escape of this reprobate. she even taunted fulviac with foolhardiness, and lack of foresight in so bungling her vengeance.

the man's escape from the cliff roused fulviac's energies to full flood. the aristocrat of avalon was ignorant of the volcano bubbling under his feet, yet any retaliatory meddling on his part might prove disastrous at so critical an hour. fulviac thrust forward the wheels of war with a heavy hand. the torrents of sedition and discontent were converging to a river of revolt, that threatened to crush tyranny as an avalanche crushes a forest.

the virgin with her moon-white face still inspired yeoland with the visionary behest given in the ruined chapel. the girl's fingers toiled at the scarlet banner; she spent half her days upon her knees, devout as any helena. she knew fulviac's schemes as surely as she did the beads on her rosary. the rough rangers of the forest held her to be a saint, and knelt to touch her dress as she passed by.

yet what are dreams but snowflakes drifting from the heavens, now white, now red, as god or man carries the lamp of love? the girl's ecstasy of faith was but a potion to her, dazing her from a yet more subtle dream. a faint voice summoned her from the unknown. she would hear it often in the silence of the night, or at full noon as she faltered in her prayers. the rosary would hang idle on her wrist, the crucifix melt from her vision. she would find her heart glowing like a rose at the touch of the sun. anon, frightened, she would shake the human half of herself, and run back penitent to her prayers.

it was springtide and the year's youth, when memories are garlanded with green, and romance scatters wind-flowers over the world. many voices awoke, like the chanting of birds, in yeoland's heart. she desired, even as a swallow, to see the old haunts again, to go a pilgrim to the place where the dear dead slept. was it yearning grief, or a joy more subtle, the cry of the wild and the voice of desire? mayhap white flowers shone on the tree of life, prophetic of fruit in the mellow year. jaspar the harper heard her plea; 'twas wilful and eager, but what of that! fulviac, good man, had ridden to gilderoy. the girl had liberty enough and to spare. she took it and jaspar, and rode out from the cliff.

threading the sables of the woods, they came one noon to the open moor. it was golden with the western sun, solitary as the sea. the shadows were long upon the sward when cambremont wood billowed out in its valley. there was no hope of their reaching the tower before dusk, so they piled dead bracken under a cedar, where the shelving eaves swept to the ground.

they were astir early upon the morrow, a sun-chastened wind inspiring the woodlands, and sculpturing grand friezes from the marbles of the sky. the forest was full of the glory of spring, starred with anemones and dusted with the azure campaniles of the hyacinth horde. primroses lurked on the lush green slopes. in the glades, the forest peristyles, green gorse blazed with its constellations of gold.

to the dolt and the hag the world is nothing but a fat larder; only the unregenerate are blind of soul. beauty, diana-like, shows not her naked loveliness to all. the girl yeoland's eyes were full of a strange lustre that may morning. many familiar landmarks did she pass upon the way, notched deep on the cross of memory. there stood the great beech tree where bertrand had carved his name, and the smooth bark still bore the scars where the knife had wantoned. she forded the stream where roland's pony had once pitched him into the mire. her eyes grew dim as she rode through the sun-steeped woods.

the day had drawn towards noon when they neared the glade in the midst of cambremont wood. heavy wain wheels had scarred the smooth green of the ride, and the newly-sawn pedestals of fallen oaks showed where woodmen had been felling timber. to jaspar the harper these signs were more eloquent of peril than of peace. he began to snuff the air like an old hound, and to jerk restless glances at the girl at his side.

"see where wheels have been," he began.

"and axes, my friend."

"what means it?"

"some one rebuilds the tower."

the harper wagged his head and half turned his horse from the grass ride.

"have a care," he said.

"hide in the woods if you will."

she rode on with a triumphant wilfulness and he followed her.

as they neared the glade, the noise of axe and hammer floated on the wind, and they saw the scene flicker towards them betwixt the great boles of the trees. the tower stood with battlements of fresh white stone; its windows had been reset, the blasting touch of fire effaced from the walls. the glade was strewn with blocks of stone and lengths of timber; the walls of a chapel were rising from the grass. men were digging trenches for the foundations of the priest's cell. soldiers idled about gossiping with the masons.

there was a smile in the girl's eyes and a deeper tint upon her cheeks as she stared betwixt the trees at the regarnished tower. those grey eyes had promised the truth in fulviac's cavern. she was glad in her heart of the man's honour, glad with a magic that made her colour. as for the harper, he stroked his grey beard and was mute. he lacked imagination, and was no longer young.

on a stump of an oak tree at the edge of the wood sat a man in a black mantle and a habit of white cloth. he had a panel upon his knee, and a small wooden chest beside him on the grass. his eyes were turned often to the rolling woods, as his plump hand flourished a brush with nervous and graceful gestures.

seeing the man's tonsure, and his dress that marked him a dominican, yeoland rode out from the trees, casting her horse's shadow athwart his work. the man looked up with puckered brow, his keen eye framing the girl's figure at a glance. it was his destiny to see the romantic and the beautiful in all things.

the priest and the girl on the horse eyed each other a moment in silence. each was instinctively examining the other. the churchman, with an approving glint of the eye, was the first to break the woodland silence.

"peace be with you, madame."

his tone hinted at a question, and the girl adopted therewith an ingenuous duplicity.

"my man and i were of a hunting party," she said; "we went astray in the wood. you, father, will guide us?"

"madame has not discovered to me her desire."

"we wish for gilderoy."

balthasar rose and pointed with his brush towards the ride by which they had come. he mapped the road for them with sundry jaunty flourishes, and much showing of his white teeth. yeoland thanked him, but was still curious.

"ah, father, whither have we wandered?"

"men call it cambremont wood, madame."

"and these buildings? a retreat, doubtless, for holy men."

balthasar corrected her with much unction.

"the lord flavian of avalon builds here," he said, "but not for monks. i, madame, am his architect, his pedagogue in painting."

yeoland pretended interest. she craned forward over her horse's neck and looked at the priest's panel. the act decided him. since she was young and comely, balthasar seized the chance of a chivalrous service. the girl had fine eyes, and a neck worthy of a venus.

"madame has taste. she would see our work?"

madame appeared very ready to grant the favour. balthasar put his brushes aside, held the girl's stirrup, and, unconscious of the irony of the act, expatiated to yeoland on the beauties of her own home. at the end of their pilgrimage, being not a little bewitched by such eyes and such a face, he begged of her the liberty of painting her there and then. 'twas for the enriching of religious art, as he very properly put it.

dead rual's grave was not ten paces distant, and jaspar was standing by it as in prayer. thus, yeoland sat to fra balthasar, oblivious of him indeed as his fingers brought her fair face into being, her shapely throat and raven hair. his picture perfected, he blessed her with the unction of a bishop, and stood watching her as she vanished down the southern ride, graceful and immaculate as a young dian.