it is impossible for two persons of marked individuality to be much together without becoming more or less faceted one towards the other. we appeal by sympathy, and inspire by contrast. what greater glory falls to a man's lot than to be chastened by the warm may of some girl's pure heart! yeoland had felt the force of fulviac's manhood; the more eternal and holier instincts were being stirred in him by a woman's face.

the man's life had been a transmigration. in his younger days the world had banqueted him; new poignancies had bubbled against his lips in the cup of pleasure. later had come that inevitable weariness, that distaste of pomp, the mood that discovers vanity in all things. finally he had set his heart upon a woman, a broken reed indeed, and had discovered her a hypocrite, according to the measure of her passions. there had been one brief burst of blasphemy. he had used his dagger and had disappeared. there had been much stir at the time. a ruby had fallen from the king's crown. some spoke of palestine, others of a monastery, others of a cubit of keen steel.

fulviac had begun life over again. he had fallen back upon elemental interests--had gone hungry, fought for his supper, slept many a storm out under a tree. the breath of the wilderness had winnowed out luxury; rain had scourged him into philosophic hardihood. he had learnt in measure that nothing pleases and endures like simplicity. even his ambition was simple in its audacious grandeur.

now the eyes of the daughter of rual were like the eyes of a madonna, and she stood in a circle of white lilies like the spirit of purity. fulviac had begun to believe in her a little, to love her a little. she stood above all other women he had known. the ladies of the court were superb and comely, and marvellously kind, but they loved colour and contemned the robe of white. they were like a rich posy for a man to choose from, scarlet and gold, azure, damask or purple. you could love their bodies, but you could not trust their souls.

as for the girl yeoland, she was very devout, very enthusiastic, but no agnes. her rosary had little rest, and with the suspicions of one not utterly sure of herself, she had striven to make religion and its results satisfy her soul. in some measure she had succeeded. yet there is ever that psychic echo, that one mysterious being, subtle as the stars, that may come before christ in the heart. transcendent spirit of idolatry! and yet it is often heaven-sent, seeing that it leads many a soul to god.

it had become yeoland's custom to walk daily in the pine wood at the foot of the stairway leading from the northern room. she had discovered a quaint nook, a mile or more from the cliff, a nook where trees stood gathered in a dense circle about a grassy mound capped by a square of mouldering stone. it was a grave, nameless and without legend. perhaps a hermit had crumbled away there under the sods, or the bones of some old warrior slept within rusty harness. none knew, none cared greatly. fulviac's men had hinted at treasure, yet even they were kept from desecrating the place by a crude and superstitious veneration for the dead.

she had wandered here one day and had settled herself on the grassy slope of the grave. the ribbon of her lute lay over her shoulder. a breeze sang fitfully through the branches, and a golden haze shimmered down as from the clerestory windows of a cathedral. her lute seemed sad when it made answer to her fingers. thought was plaintive and not devotional, if one might judge by the mood of the music, and the notes were wayward and pathetically void of discipline.

it was while the girl thrummed idly at the strings that a vague sound floated down to her with the momentary emphasis born of a fickle wind. it was foreign to the forest, or it would not have roused her as it did. as she listened the sound came again from the west. it was neither the distant bay of a hound nor a horn's solitary note. there was something metallic about it, something musical. when it disappeared, she listened for its recurrence; when she heard it again, she puzzled over its nature.

the sound grew clearer at gradual intervals, and then ceased utterly. the girl listened for a long while to no purpose, and then prepared to forget the incident. the decision was premature. she was startled anon by the sound breaking out at no great distance. there was no doubt as to its nature: it was the clanging of a bell.

yeoland wondered who could be carrying such a thing in such a place. possibly some of fulviac's men were coming home with stolen cattle, and an old bell-wether from some wild moorland with them.

the sound of the bell came very near; it seemed close amid the circling ranks of pines. twigs were cracking too, and she heard the beat of approaching footsteps. then her glance caught something visible, a streak of white in the shadows, moving like a ghost. the thing went amid the trees with the bell mute. the girl's doubts were soon set at rest as to whether she had been seen or no. the figure in grey slipped between the pines, and came out into the grass circle about the grave, cowled, masked, bell at girdle, a leper.

the girl stared at it with a cold flutter at her heart. the thing stood under the boughs motionless as stone. the bell gave never a tinkle; a white chin poked forward from under the hood; the masked face was in shadow. then the bell jangled, and a gruff voice came from the cowl.

"unclean, unclean!" it said; "avoid the white death, and give alms."

yeoland obeyed readily enough, put a portion of the grave betwixt herself and the leper, fumbled in her pouch and threw the man a piece of silver. he came forward suddenly into the light, fell on his knees, put his hood back, plucked off the mask.

it was the face of the lord flavian of gambrevault.

the girl stood and stared at him with unstinted astonishment.

"you," she said, "you?"

"madame, i said that you should see my face again."

she conceived a sudden impetuous desire to turn and leave him on his knees, but some inner potency of instinct restrained her. she looked down at the man, with no kindling kindness upon her face. she did not know what to say to him, how to tune her mood. the first thought that rushed into her mind was seized upon and pressed into service, discretion or no discretion.

"madman, they will kill you if they find you here."

"no woman ever loved a coward."

"for heaven's sake, go away."

he rose from his knees and lifted up his frock. the girl saw harness and a sword beneath it. this young leopard of the southern shores had fettle enough, and spirit. he was a mixture of imperturbable determination and sanguine quixotism, as he faced her under the trees.

"this dress is privileged; my bell warns folk away; who would fall foul of a miserable leper? if this frock fails me, i have my sword."

she looked at him with the solemnity of a child, hand folded in hand.

"i cannot understand you," she said.

"not yet."

"are you the man whose life i saved? that breath of death on your brow, messire, should have made you thoughtful of your soul."

"let me plead a moment."

"for what?"

"my honour."

"why your honour?"

"because i want you to believe that i have a soul."

he was vastly earnest, and his eyes followed her, as though she were some being out of heaven. she had never seen such a look in a man's eyes before; it troubled her. she questioned her own heart, laughed emptily, and gave in to him.

"we are both mad," she said, "but go on. i will listen for one minute. keep watch lest any one should come upon us suddenly."

she sat down on the grass bank, while he stood before her, holding his lazar bell by the clapper.

"look at this dress," he said.

"yes?"

"it is how i feel in soul when i look at you."

she frowned visibly.

"if you wax personal, messire, i shall leave you."

"no, no, i will keep to my own carcase, and play the egotist. well, i will be brief. look at me, i am the first lord in the south, master of an army, one of the twelve knights of the order of the rose."

"go on."

"when i was twenty years old, certain clever people found me a wife, a woman five years my senior in time, twenty years my superior in knowledge of the world. well, six months had not passed before i hated her, hated her with my whole soul. my god, what a thing for a boy to begin life with a woman who made him half the bounden vassal of the devil!"

"you seem generous. the faults were all on her side."

"madame, i say nothing against the woman, only that she had no soul. we were incompatible as day and night, fire and water. the thing crushed the youth out of me, made me desperate, and worse, made me old beyond my years. i have done my best. i have groped along like a man in the dark, knowing nothing, understanding nothing, save that i had a warm heart in me, and that life seemed one grim jest. the future had no fire for me; i drank the wine of the present, strove to please my senses, plunged into the abysses of the world. sometimes i tried to pray. sometimes i played the cynic. the eternal beacon of love had gone out of my life. i had no sun, no inspiration for my soul."

she sprang up suddenly, breathing fast like one who is near tears.

"why do you speak to me of this?"

"god knows."

his voice was utterly lonely.

"what am i to you? you have hardly seen me three hours in your life. why do you speak to me of this?"

he put a hand to his throat, and did not look at her.

"madame, there are people who come near our hearts in one short hour, people who are winter to us to eternity. do not ask me to explain this truth; as christ's death, i know it to be true. i trust you. all the logicians of the world could not tell me why. i do not know that i could bring forward one single reason out of my own soul, save that you showed me great mercy once. and now--and now----"

he broke down suddenly, and could not speak. yeoland appealed to him out of the quickness of her fear.

"messire, messire, your promise."

"let me speak, or i stifle."

"go, for god's sake, go!"

he flung his hands towards her with a great outburst of passion.

"heaven and god's throne, you shall hear me to the end. woman, woman, my soul flows to you as the sea ebbs to the moon; deep in the sky a new sun burns; the stars are dust, dust blown from the coffins of the dead who loved. life leaps in me like another chaos. all my heart glows like an autumn orchard, and i burn. the world is red with a myriad roses. god's in the heaven, christ bleeds on quaking calvary."

she ran to him suddenly and seized his wrist.

"go----!"

"i cannot."

"men are coming, i hear them in the woods, they will kill you!"

"i hear them too."

"go, go, for my sake and for god's."

he kissed her sleeve, pulled his cowl down, and fled away into the woods.