Chapter XII: Book III: The War in Wales (4)

It was a wondrous cry, clear and plaintive, yet tremulous with feeling. It rang through the woods like silver, bringing back the picture of a solemn beech wood under moonlight, and a girl tied naked to the trunk of a tree. A great lustre of awe swept over Pelleas's face; his eyes were big and luminous as the eyes of a blind man; he groped with his hands as he passed back under the May trees to the valley.

In the long grass stood a woman in armour, her helmet thrown aside, and her red gold hair pouring marvellous in the sunlight over her violet surcoat. Her head was thrown back so as to show the full sweep of her shapely throat; her face was very pale under her parted hair, while her lids drooped over eyes that seemed to swim with unshed tears. Her hands, slightly outstretched, quivered as with a shuddering impulse from her heart, and her half-parted lips looked as though they were moulded to breathe forth a moan.

Pelleas stood and stared at her as a dead man might look at God. He drew near step by step, his face white as Igraine's, his eyes as deep with desire as hers. Neither of them said a word, but stood and looked into each other's faces as into heaven--awed, solemnised, silenced. Above them towered the green woods; the meadows rippled from them with their broidery of flowers; the scent of the white May swept fragrant on the air. Solitude was with them, and the mild smile of Nature glimmered with the sunlight over the trees.

Igraine spoke first.

"Pelleas," was all she said.

The man gave a great sob, fell on his knees, and would have kissed her surcoat. Igraine bent down to him with eyes that shone like two deep wells of love. Both her hands were upon Pelleas's shoulders, his face was turned to hers.

"Kneel not to me."

"Igraine."

"Pelleas."

"Let me touch you."

"There, there, you have my hand."

"My God, my God!"

Igraine gave a low cry, half knelt, half fell before him. Pelleas's arms caught her, his face hung over hers, her hair fell down and trailed a golden pool upon the grass. She put her hands up and touched his hair, smiled wonderfully, and looked at him as though she were dying.

"Kiss me, Pelleas."

Pelleas drew a deep breath; his body seemed to quake; his whole soul was sucked up by the girl's lips.

"Igraine," was all he said.

Her face blazed, her hands clung about his neck.

"Again, again."

"My God, have I not prayed for this!"

His eyes were large and wonderful to look upon. There was such awe and love in them that an angel might have looked thus upon the Christ and have earned no reproach. Igraine kissed his lips, crept close into his bosom, hid her face, and wept.

X

When Igraine had ended her tears, and grown calm and quiet, Pelleas took her hand and led her to a grass bank painted thick with flowers that sloped to the white boughs of a great May tree. He was radiant in his manhood, and his eyes burnt for her with such a splendour of pride and tenderness that she trembled in thought for the secret she had kept from him in her heart. He could know nothing of Gorlois, or he would not have come thus to her. The mocking face of fate leered at her like a satyr out of the shadows, yet with the joy of the moment she put the thoughts aside and lived on the man's lips and the great love that brimmed for her in his eyes.

Pelleas sat in the long grass at her feet and looked up at her as at a saint. Never had she seen such glory of happiness on human face, never such manhood deified by the holier instincts of the heart. The sheer strength of his devotion carried her above her cares and made her content to live for the present, and to gird time with the girdle of an hour.

"You are no nun, Igraine?"

She smiled at him and shook her head.

"No, no, Pelleas."

"Would to God you had told me that a year ago."

"Would to God I had."

"It would have saved much woe."

Igraine hung her head. The man's words were prophetic in their honest ignorance, and the whole tale had almost rushed from her that moment but for a certain selfishness that held her mute, a fear that overpowered her. She knew the fibre of Pelleas's soul. To tell him the truth would mean to call his honour to arms against his love, and she dreaded that thought as she dreaded death.

"I was a fool, Pelleas," she said, with a queer intensity of tone that made the man look quickly into her eyes.

"You did not know."

"Pardon, Pelleas, I knew your soul, how true and strong it was. God knows I tried you to the end, and bitter truth it proved to me. If you had only waited."

"Ah, Igraine."

"Only a night; you would have had the truth at dawn."

"I struggled for your soul and for mine, as I thought."

"Yes, yes, you chose the nobler part, thinking me a mere woman, a frail thing blown about by my own passion. I loved you, Pelleas, for the deed, though it nigh brought me to my death."

"God knows I honoured you, Igraine."

"Too well; it had been better for us both if you had been more human."

There was an anguish of regret in her voice, a plaintive accusation that made Pelleas wince to the core. He bent down and kissed her hand as it lay in her lap, then looked into her face with a mute appeal that brought her to the verge of tears.

"Courage, courage, dear heart."

"God bless you, Igraine."

"I am very glad of your love."

"Come now, tell me how the year has passed."

Igraine held his hand in hers and began to twist her hair about his wrist into a bracelet of gold. Her eyes faltered from his, and were hot and heavy with an inward misery of thought. The man's words wounded her at every turn, and in his innocence he shook her happiness as a wind shakes a tree.

"There is little I can tell you," she said.

"Every hour is as gold to me."

"Would I had them lying in my lap."

"We are young yet, Igraine."

There was a joyousness in his voice that sounded to the girl like a blow struck upon empty brass, or like the laugh of a child through a ruined house. His rich optimism mocked her to the echo.

"I took refuge in Winchester," she began, "with Radamanth my uncle, and lodged there many months. I watched for you and waited, but got no news of a knight named Pelleas. Week by week as my knowledge grew I began to think and think, to piece fragments together, to dream in my heart. I longed to see this Uther of whom all Britain talked. Ah, you remember the cross, Pelleas, which you left at my feet?"

Pelleas smiled. She put her hand into her bosom with a little blush of pride and looked into the man's eyes.

"I have it here still," she said, "where it has hung these many months. This scrap of gold first taught me to look for Uther."

"Ah, Igraine, am I a king!"

"My king, sire. And oh! how long it was before I could get news of you; yet in time tidings came. Then it was that I left Winchester, went on foot through the land, and hearing again of you I set out for Wales and Caerleon with rumours of war in my ears. Even from Caerleon I followed you, even to the western sea, where I saw the great battle with Gilomannius, and the noble deeds you did there for Britain."

Pelleas's dark eyes flashed up to hers. A man loves to be noble in deed before the face of the woman he serves, a species of divine vanity that begets heroes. The girl's staunch faith was a thing that proffered the superbest flattery.

"You are very wonderful, Igraine."

"It was all for my own heart; and what greater joy could I have than to see you a king before the thundering swords of your knights."

"You saw that, Igraine?"

"Do you remember a hillock by the pine forest on the ridge, where you reined in after the charge and uncovered your head to the sun?"

"As it were yesterday."

"I stood on that hillock, Pelleas, and saw your face after many months."

"Ah, Igraine, said I not you were very wonderful?"

"No, no, I am only a woman, only a woman."

"God give me such a wife."

The word was keen as the barb of a lance. Pelleas's head was bowed over the girl's hand as he pressed his lips to the gold circlet of hair, and he did not see the frown of pain upon her face. Wife! What a mockery, what bitterness! The sky seemed black for a moment, the valley bare with the blasts of winter and the moan of tortured trees. She half choked in her throat, and her heart seemed to fail within her like a bowl that is broken. Yet there was a smile on her face when Pelleas looked up from the circlet of her hair with the pride of love in his large eyes.

"What ails you, Igraine?"

"A mere thought of the past."

"Tell it me."

"No, no, it is a nothing, a mere vapour, and it has passed. How warm your lips are to my fingers. Tell me of yourself, Pelleas."

"But this armour, Igraine?"

"I took it from a dead knight, God rest his soul. I have wandered long in Wales, yet ever drew to Caerleon where folk spoke your name, yet never might I come near you, lest--lest you were too great for me."

"Child, child!"

"Uther Pendragon, King of Britain!"

"Let the world die."

"And let us live; Pelleas, tell me of yourself."

The man looked long over the valley in silence. His face was very grave, and his eyes were deep with thought as though the past awed him with the recollection of its bitterness.

"May I never pass such another night," he said.

The words were curt and calm enough as though leaving infinite things unsaid. Igraine sat silent by him and still plaited her hair about his wrist.

"I went away in the dark, for I thought you were a nun, Igraine, and I would not break your vows. I was nearly blind for an hour. Twice my horse stumbled and fell with me in the woods, and once I was smitten out of the saddle by a tree. Dawn came, and how I cursed the sun. I seemed to see your face everywhere, and to hear your voice in every sound. Days came and went, and I hated the sight of man; as for my prayers, I could not say them, and I was dumb in my heart towards God. I rode north into the wilds, and into the fenlands of the east. Strange things befell me in many places. I fought often, beast and wild men and robber ruffians out of the woods. Fighting pleased me; it eased the wrath in my heart that seemed to rage up against the world, and against all things that drew breath. I wandered in the night of the forests, waded through swamps, took my food by the sword, and never blessed man or woman. I felt bitter and evil to the core."

Igraine bent down and touched his forehead with her lips.

"Brave heart," she said.

"You shall hear how I came by my own soul again."

"Ah, tell me that."

"It was as though a still voice came to me out of heaven. I was riding in the northern wilds not far from rough coastland and the sea, and riding, came upon a little house of timber all bowered round with trees. It was a peaceful spot, flowers grew around, and the sun was shining, and I drew near, moved in my heart to beg food and rest, for I was half starved and gaunt as a monk from an African desert. What did I see there? A dead man tied to a tree and gored with many wounds; a woman kneeling dead before his feet, thrust through with a sword; a little child lying near with its head crushed by a stone or a club. The sword was a Saxon sword, and I knew who had done the deed; but sight of the dead folk by their empty home seemed to smite my pity like the thought of the dead Christ. I had pitied but myself and you, Igraine, and had wandered through the land like a brute beast mad with the smart of my own wound. Here was woe enough, agony enough, to shame my heart. Straightway I went down on my knees and prayed, and came through penitence and fire to a knowledge of myself. 'Rise up,' said the voice in me, 'rise up and play the man. There is much sorrow in Britain, much shedding of innocent blood, much violence, and much brute wrath. Rise up and strike for woman and for babe, let your sword shine against the wolves from over the sea, let your shield hurl them from the ruined hearths of Britain, the smoking churches, and the children of the cross.' So I rose up strong again and comforted, and rode back into the world to do my duty."

When Pelleas had made an end of speaking, Igraine's eyes were full of tears. The simplicity of the man's words had awakened to the full all the pathos of the past in her, and she was as proud of him as when she saw him hurl Gilomannius and his host down the green slopes towards the sea. Her lips quivered as she spoke to him--looking into his face with her eyes dim and shadowy with tears.

"Forgive me all this."

"It has been good for me, Igraine, nor would I alter the days that are gone."

"No, no."

"We have found love again."

"Ah, Pelleas!"

"What more need we ask?"

"What more?"

Her voice was half a wail. Again it was winter, and the wind blew as though at midnight; the flowers and the green woods were blurred before the girl's eyes. Gorlois's hard face and the grey walls of Tintagel came betwixt her and the summer. And, though the mood lasted but for a moment, it seemed like the long agony of days crushed into the compass of a minute.

Evening stood calm-eyed in the east. A tranquil heat hung over wood and valley, a warm silence that seemed to bind the world into a golden swoon. Not a ripple stirred in the grass with its tapestries of flowers; every leaf was hushed upon the bough; nothing moved save the droning bee and the wings of the butterflies hovering colour-bright over the meadows. The sky was a mighty sapphire, the woods carved emeralds piled giantwise to the sun. There was no discord and no sound of man, as though the curse of Adam was not yet.

Igraine had drawn Pelleas's great sword from its sheath. She held it slantwise before her, and pressed her lips to the cold steel.

"Old friend," she said, "be ever true to me."

Pelleas laughed and touched her hair with his hand. A kind of exaltation came upon them, and the zest of life crept through the bodies like green sap in spring. Igraine had filled her brazen helmet to the brim with flowers, and she scattered them and sang as they roamed into the hoar shadows of the woods:--

"Dear love of mine,
Where art thou roaming?
The west is red,
My heart is calling."

Never had the vaults seemed greener, the half light more mysterious under the massive trees. The far world was out of ken; they alone lived and had their being; the toil of man was not even like the long sob of a moonlit sea, or the sound of rivers running in the night.

The infinite strangeness of beauty shone over them like a wizard light out of the west. Igraine's lips were very red, her face white in the shadows, her eyes deep with mute desire. Hand held hand, body touched body. Often she would lie out upon Pelleas's arm, her head upon his shoulder, her hair clouding over his red harness. They were content to be together, to forget the world save so much of it as came within the ken of their eyes, and the close grip of their twined fingers. They said little as they swayed together under the trees. Soul ebbed into soul upon their lips, and a deep ecstasy possessed them like the throbbing pathos of some song.

As the day deepened Pelleas and Igraine turned back into the valley, hand in hand. The west burnt gold above the tree tops, the gnarled trunks were pillars of agate bearing Byzant domes of breathless leaves. By the white May trees the two horses stood tethered, black and grey against the grass. Loosing them, and taking each a bridle, they passed down through flowers to the cottage and the pool.

Garlotte met them there with her brown hair pouring over her shoulders, and a clean white kerchief over her throat and bosom. She came to them through a little thicket of fox-gloves that were budding early, white and purple. Her blue eyes quivered for a moment over Pelleas's face as she made him a deep curtsey, and bent to kiss Igraine's hand. There was a vast measure of sympathy in Garlotte's heart, and yet for all her well-wishing she was troubled for the two, fearing for them instinctively with even her small knowledge of the world. She had learnt enough from Igraine to comprehend in measure that element of tragedy that had entered with Gorlois into her life. Her interest in the man Pelleas was no mere vulgar curiosity, rather an intense pity that permeated her warm innocence of spirit to the core.

She had spread supper on the table, a much meditated feast that had kept her eagerly busy since she had guessed the name of the strange knight who had ridden down out of the woods. She had the pride of a young housewife in her creamy milk, her bread. She had made a tansy cake, and there was a rich cream cheese ready in the cupboard, and a fat rabbit stewing by the fire. Yet for all her ingenuous pride she felt much troubled when it came to the test lest her fare should seem rude and meagre to the great knight in the red harness. Certainly he had a kind face and splendid eyes, but would he not smile at her humble supper, her horn cups, and her plates of hollywood? Her cares were empty enough, but they were very real to the sensitive child who feared to seem shamed before Igraine.

Half the happiness of life lies in the kindly sensibility of others to our desire for sympathy. A surly word, a trivial ungraciousness, a small deed passed over in thankless silence, how much these things mean to a sensitive heart! Garlotte, standing in her cottage door, half shy and timid, found her small fears mere little goblins of her own invention. Igraine, radiant as the evening, came and kissed her on the lips.

"Little sister, you have been very good to me."

The great knight too was smiling at her in quite a fatherly fashion. What a strong face he had, and what a noble look; she felt sure that he was a good man, and her heart went out to him like an opening flower. When he took her hand, and a lock of her hair and kissed it, she went red as one of her own roses, and was dumb with an impulsive gladness.

"Little sister, you have been very good to me."

"Good, my lord, to you!"

"Child, Igraine can tell you how."

"But the Lady Igraine, she saved my life!"

"Ah, I had not heard that. Tell me."

Garlotte found her ease in a moment. The whole tale came bubbling up like water out of a spring. Pelleas's strong face beamed; he touched Igraine's hair with his fingers and looked into her eyes as only a man in love can look. Garlotte saw that she was giving pleasure, and felt a glow from head to heart. Surely this great, grave-faced knight was a noble soul; how gentle he was, and how he looked into Igraine's eyes and bent over her like a tall elm over a slim cypress tree. She caught the happiness of the two, and from that moment her heart was singing and she had no more fear for herself and her poor cottage. Even the horn cups took a golden dignity, and her tansy cake and her cream seemed fit for a prince.

The three were soon at supper together round the wooden table, with honeysuckle and roses climbing close above their heads. Garlotte would have stood and waited on Pelleas and Igraine, but they would have none of it; so she was set smiling at the head of her little table, and constrained to play the lady under her own roof. It was a dull meal so far as mere words were concerned. Pelleas's eyes were on Igraine in the twilight, and he had no hunger save hunger of heart; yet that the supper was a success there was no doubt whatever. Garlotte watched them both with a quiet delight; young as she was she was wise in the simple love of love, and so she mothered the pair to her heart's content in her own imagination. If only Renan had been there to help her serve, and touch her hand under the table, what a perfect guest-hour it would have been.

When the meal was over she jumped up with a shy smile, took a rush basket from the wall, and went out into the garden. Igraine called her back.

"Where are you going, child?"

"Up the valley to the dead oak tree where herbs grow. I must make a stew to-morrow."

"It will soon be dark."

Garlotte swung her basket and laughed from her cloud of hair.

"You gathered herbs on Sunday, Igraine."

"You squirrel!"

"Renan was here; you came home after dusk; good-by, good-by."

They heard her go singing through the garden, a soft _chant d'amour_ that would have gone wondrously to flute and cithern. It died away slowly amid the trees like an elf's song coming from woodlands in the moonlight. Pelleas drew a deep breath and listened in the shadow of the room with his hands clasped before him on the table. He looked as though he were praying. Igraine's eyes were glooms of violet mystery as she watched him, her hands folded over a breast that rose and fell as with the restless motion of a troubled sea. She called the man softly by name; her body bent to him like a bow, her hair bathed his face with dim ripples of gold as mouth touched mouth.

They went out into the garden together and stood under the cedar tree.

"Pelleas, my love, my own."

"Heart of mine."

"You will never leave me?"

"How should the sea put the earth from his bosom, or the moon pass from the arms of the night?"

"I am faint, Pelleas; hold me in your arms."

"They are strong, Igraine."

"There, let me rest so, for ever. Look, the stars are coming out, and there is the moon flooding silver over the trees. My lips burn, and I am faint."

"Courage, courage, dear heart."

"How close you hold me! I could die so."

"What is death to us, Igraine?"

"Or life?"

"God in heaven, and heaven on earth."

"Your words hurt me."

XI

How the birds sang that evening as a saffron afterglow fainted over the forest spires, and when all was still with the hush of night how the cry of a nightingale thrilled from a tree near the cottage!

The glamour of the day had passed, and now what mockery and bitterness came with the cold, calculating face of the moon. Igraine tossed and turned in her bed like one taken with a fever; her brain seemed afire, her hair like so much flame about her forehead. As she lay staring with wide, wakeful eyes, the birds' song mocked her to the echo, the scent of honeysuckle and rose floated in like a sad savour of death, and the moonlight seemed to watch her without a quaver of pity. Her heart panted in the darkness; she was torn by the thousand torments of a troubled conscience, wounded to tears, yet her eyes were dry and waterless as a desert. Gorlois's face seemed to glare down at her out of the idle gloom, and she could have cried out with the fear that lay like an icy hand over her bosom.

Pelleas slept under the cedar tree, wrapped in an old cloak, relic of Garlotte's father. How Igraine's heart wailed for the man, how she longed for the touch of his hand! God of heaven, she could not let him go again, and starve her soul with the old cursed life. His lips had touched hers, his arms had held her close, she had felt the warmth of his body and the beating of his heart. Was all this nothing--a dream, a splendid phantasm to be rent away like a crimson cloud? Was she to be Gorlois's wife and nothing more, a bitter flower growing under a gallows, sour wine frothing in a gilded cup?

God of heaven, no! What had the world done for her that she should obey its edicts and suffer for its tyrannies? Gorlois had cheated her of her liberty, let him pay the price to the fates; what honour, indeed, had she to preserve for him? If he was a brute piece of lust, a tyrant, a demagogue, so much the better, it would ease her conscience. She owed no fealty, no marriage vow, to Gorlois. Her body was no more his than was her soul, and a dozen priests and a dozen masses might as well marry granite to fire. How could a fool in a cape and frock by gabbling a service bind an irresponsible woman to a man she hated more than the foulest mud in the foulest alley? It was a stupendous piece of nonsense, to say the least of it. No God calling himself a just God could hold such a bargain holy.

And then--the truth! What a stumbling-block truth was on occasions! She knew Pelleas's intense love of honour, the fine sensibility of his conscience, the strong thirst for the highest good, that made him the victim of an ethical tyranny. If he had left her after Andredswold because he thought her a nun, what hope now had she of holding him if he knew her to be a wife? And yet for all her love she could not bring herself to keep him wholly from the truth. For all her passion and the fire in her rebellious heart she was not a woman who could fling reason to the winds, and stifle up her conscience with a kiss. Besides, she loved Pelleas to the very zenith of her soul. To have a lie understood upon her lips, to be shamed before the man's eyes, were things that scourged her in fancy even more than the thought of losing him. She trembled when she thought how he might look at her in later days if a passive lie were proven against her with open shame.

But to tell him of Gorlois, and the humiliation of that darkest hour of her life! Could such a man as Pelleas serve her longer after such a confession? He would become a king again, a stranger, a man set in high places far beyond the mere yearning of a woman's white face. And yet, it was possible that his love might prove stronger than his reason; it was possible that he might front the world and frown down the petty judgments of men. Glorious and transcendent sacrifice! She could face calumny beside him as a rock faces the froth of waves; she could look Gorlois in the eyes, and know neither shame nor pity.

Her mood that night was like the passage of a blown leaf, tossed up to heaven, whirled over the tree tops, driven down again into the mire. Strong woman that she was, her very strength made the struggle more indecisive and more racking. She could not renounce Pelleas for the great love she bore him, and yet she could not will to play a false part by reason of this same great love. Her soul, like a wanderer in the wilds, halted and wavered between two tracks that led forward into the unknown.

Garlotte was sleeping in the far corner of the cottage. The girl had given up her bed to Igraine, who envied her her quiet, restful breathing as she lay and listened. In her doubt she called and woke Garlotte from her sleep, hardly knowing indeed what she desired to say to her, yet half fearful of lying alone longer in the night with her own thoughts for company. Garlotte rose up and came across the room to the bigger bed. She knelt down; two warm arms crept under the coverlet, and a soft cheek touched Igraine's.

"Why are you awake, Igraine?"

The warmth of the girl's body, her quiet breathing, the sweep of her hair, seemed to bring a scent of peace and human sympathy into the moonlit room. Igraine put her arms about her, and drew her down to her side. Their white faces and clouding hair lay close together on the pillow.

"You are in trouble, Igraine?"

"How should I be in trouble?"

"You breathe like one in pain, and your voice is strange."

"Hush, Garlotte."

"Am I not right?"

"Pelleas must not hear us talking."

They were silent awhile, lying in each other's arms with no sound save that of their breathing. Igraine's misery burnt in her and cried out for sympathy; Garlotte, half wise by instinct, yearned to share a trouble which she did not wholly comprehend, to advise where she was partly ignorant. The girl felt a great stirring of her heart towards Igraine, but could say nothing for the moment. Having no better eloquence at command she raised her head and kissed the other's lips, a warm, impulsive kiss that seemed as rich in sympathy as a rose in scent.

Igraine's confidence woke at the touch of the girl's lips; she hungered even for this child's comfort, her simple guidance in this matter of life and love. It was easy enough to die, hard to exist as a mere spiritless Galatea devoid of soul.

"Garlotte!"

"Yes, Igraine."

"Imagine that you were married to a man you hated, and you loved Renan."

Garlotte raised herself in bed.

"And Renan loved you and knew nothing?"

"Yes."

"Would you tell Renan the truth?"

Garlotte remained motionless, propped on her two hands, and looking out of the window into the streaming moonlight. Her brown hair touched Igraine's face as she lay still and watched her. The room was very silent, not a breeze seemed stirring, the roses athwart the window were still as though carved in wood.

Garlotte spoke very softly, looking up with her face white and solemn in the moonlight.

"I should tell Renan," she said.

"Why?"

"Because I love him."

"Yes--go on."

"I should not love him rightly in God's eyes if I kept him from the truth."

The coverlet rose and fell over Igraine's bosom, and there was a queer twisting pain at her heart.

"But if you were never to see Renan again?" she said.

"If I told him the truth?"

"Yes, child."

Garlotte dared not look into Igraine's face; her lips were twitching, and her eyes were hot with tears.

"I do not know," she faltered.

"Think, child, think!"

"I should not tell him."

In half a breath she had contradicted herself with a little gasp.

"Yes, yes, I should tell him."

"The truth?"

"Because I should not be happy even with him if I were acting a lie."

Igraine gave a dry sob, and drew Garlotte down again to her side. They lay very close, almost mouth to mouth, their arms about each other's bodies.

"I love Pelleas."

"Yes, yes."

"I will tell him the truth."

"Ah, Igraine, it is best, it is best."

"But it will kill me if I lose him."

"Ah, Igraine, but he will love you all the more."

It was Garlotte who broke into tears, and hid her face in the other's bosom. Igraine's eyes were as dry as a blue sky parched with a summer sun, and her voice failed her like the slack string of a lute. The moonlight slanted down upon them both. Before dawn they had fallen asleep in each other's arms.

How many a heart trembles with the return of day; what fears rise with the first blush of light in an empty sky! The cloak of night is lifted from weary faces; the quiet balm of darkness is withdrawn from the moiling care of many a heart. To Igraine the dawn light came like a message of misery as she lay beside the sleeping Garlotte, and watched the gloom grow less and less in the little room. This dawn seemed a veritable symbol of the truth that she feared to look upon--and recognise. The night seemed kinder, less implacable, less grave of face. Day, like a pale justiciary, stalked up out of the east to call her to that assize where truth and the soul meet under the eye of heaven.

How different was it with Pelleas under the eaves of the great cedar. He had slept little that night for mere wakeful happiness; the moon had kept carnival for him above the world; at dawn the stars had crept back from the choir stalls into the chambers of the night. He had known no weariness, no abatement of his deep calm joy. His heart had answered blithely to the dawn-song of the birds as though he had risen fresh from a dreamless sleep. The day to him had no look of evil; the sky was never grey; the flush in the east recalled no flashing of torches over a funeral bier. He rose up in the glory of his clean manhood, the strong kindliness of his great love. His prayers went to heaven that morning with the lark, and the Spirit of God seemed like a wind moving softly in the green boughs above his head.

Very early before it was light he had taken a plunge and a swim in the pool, a swinging burst through the still water that had made him revel in his great strength. He had come up from the pool like a god refreshed, and had put on his red harness while the mists rose from the valley, and the birds chanted in the ghostly trees. When the day was fully awake he walked the grass-path in the garden like a watchman, with the scent of honeysuckle and thyme in his nostrils, and a blaze of flowers at his feet. As he paced up and down with his face turned to the sky, he sang in a mellow bass a song of Guyon's, the Court minstrel--

"When the dawn has come,
My heart sighs for thee and the gleam of thy hair;
Eyes deep as the night
When the summer sky arches the world."

So sang Pelleas as he paced the grass with his eyes wandering ever towards the doorway of the cottage.

Presently Igraine came out to him, and stood under the shadow of the porch. Her hair hung lustrous about a face that was white and drawn, despite a smile. Certainly a haze of red flushed her cheeks when Pelleas came up with a glory of love in his eyes, took her hands and kissed them, as though there was no such divine flesh in the whole wide world. How wonderful it was to be touched so, to have such eyes pouring out so strong a soul before her face, to know the presence of a great love, and to feel the echoing passion of it in her own heart!

After the barren months of winter, and the long bondage in Tintagel, it seemed ah idyllic thing to be so served, so comforted. And was this faery time but for an hour, a day, and no longer? Was she but to see the man's face, to feel the touch of his hands, the grand calm of his love, before losing him, perhaps for life? Her heart fluttered in her like a smitten bird. And Pelleas, too, what a thrust lurked for the man, a blow to be given in the name of truth. How could she speak to him of Gorlois when he came and looked at her with those eyes of his?

Igraine had never felt such misery as this even in the gloomy galleries of Tintagel. It tried her courage to the death to face Pelleas's wistful gaiety, and the adoration that beamed on her from his eyes.

"Dear heart, it is dawn--it is dawn!"

Pelleas held her hands, and waited for her lips to be turned to his. Instead, he saw lowered lids and quivering lashes, lips that were plaintive, a face white beneath a wealth of hair.

"Ah, Igraine, you do not look at me."

Her eyes trembled up to his with a sudden infinite lustre.

"Pelleas!"

"Girl, girl!"

"Ah, I have hardly slept."

"Nor I, Igraine."

"I think I am worn out with thinking of you."

"Ha, little woman, you are extravagant; you will die like a flower even while I hold you in my bosom."

Garlotte came out from the cottage, and was kissed by Pelleas on the lips. The girl's eyes were red and heavy; she had been crying but a moment ago in the shadow of the cottage room, and she was timid and very solemn. Pelleas looked at her like a big brother.

"Come now, little sister," he said, with a rare smile; "methinks you must be in love too by your looks."

"Yes, lord."

"Said I not so? You women take things so to heart."

"Yes, lord."

"What a solemn face, little sister!"

Garlotte mastered herself for a moment, then burst into tears and ran back into the cottage. Pelleas coloured, looked troubled, glanced at Igraine, thinking he had hurt the girl's heart with his words. Igraine's face startled him as if the visage of death had risen up suddenly amid the flowers. He stood mute before her watching her starved lips, her drawn face, her eyes that stared beyond him with a kind of cold frenzy.

"Pelleas, Pelleas!"

It was like the wild cry of a woman over her dead love. The sound struck Pelleas with a vague sense of stupendous woe, a dim prophecy of evil like the noise of autumn in the woods. Before he could gather words, Igraine had turned and run from him as in great fear, skirting the pool and holding for the black yawn of the forest aisles. Pelleas started to follow her in a daze of wonder. Was the girl mad? Had love turned her brain? What was there hid in her heart that made her wing from him like a dove from a hawk?

By the trees Igraine slackened and turned breathless on the man as he came towards her through the long grass. Her eyes were dim and frightened, her lips twitching, and there was a bleak hunted look upon her face that made her seem white and old. Pelleas's blood ran cold in him like water; a vague dread sapped his manhood; he stared at Igraine and was speechless.

The girl put her arm before her eyes and shook as she stood. Pelleas fell on his knees with a cry, and reached for her hand.

"Igraine, Igraine!"

She snatched her arm away and would not look at him.

"My God, what is this, Igraine?"

"Don't touch me; I am Gorlois's wife!"

A vast silence seemed to fall sudden on the world. It might have been dead of night in winter, with deep snow upon the ground and no wind stirring in the forest. To Igraine, swaying in an agony with her arm over her face, the silence came like the hush that might fall on heaven before the damning of a lost soul to hell. She wondered what was in Pelleas's heart, and dared not look at him or meet his eyes. God in heaven! would the man never speak; would the silence crawl on into an eternity!

At last she did look, and nearly fell at the wrench of it. Pelleas was standing near her looking at her with his great solemn eyes as though she had given him his death. His face seemed to have gone grey and haggard in a moment.

"Gorlois's wife!" was all he said.

Igraine hung her head, shivered, and said nothing. Pelleas never stirred; he seemed like so much stone, a mere pillar of granite misery. Igraine could have writhed at his feet and caught him by the knees only to melt for a moment that white calm on his face that looked like the mask of death.

A voice that was almost strange to her startled her out of her stupor of despair.

"How long have you been wed, Igraine?"

"Nine months, Pelleas."

The man seemed to be struggling with himself as though he strove after the truth, yet could not confront it for all his strength. When he spoke his voice was like the voice of a man winded by hard running. He appeared to urge himself forward, to goad his courage to a task that he dreaded. There was great anguish on his face as he looked into the girl's eyes.

"I must speak what I know, Igraine."

The words seemed slow with effort. Igraine watched him in silence, full of a vague dread.

"Gorlois has spoken to me of his wife."

"Say on, Pelleas."

Pelleas hesitated.

"The truth--tell me the truth."

She was almost clamorous. Pelleas plunged on.

"Gorlois told me how his wife was faithless to him, how she had fled with Brastias, the knight who had ward over her at Caerleon. I never knew her name until this hour."

The words might have fallen like the strokes of a lash. Igraine stood and stared at the man, her open mouth a black circle, her eyes expressionless for the moment, like the eyes of one smitten blind. The full meaning of the words numbed her and hindered her understanding. A babel of shame sounded in her ears. The sinister intent of the man's accusation rose gradual before her reason like the distorted image of a dream. She felt cold to the core; a strange terror possessed her.

"Pelleas, what have you said to me?"

Her voice was a mere whisper. Pelleas hung his head and said never a word. His silence seemed to fling sudden fire into Igraine's eyes, and her face flamed like a sunset. It might have been Gorlois who stood and challenged the honour of her soul.

"Man, tell me what is in your heart."

Her voice was shrill--even imperious. Pelleas hung his head.

"Gorlois keeps poison for his wife," were his words.

Igraine's lips curled.

"A sword for Brastias."

"Generous man."

Pelleas was watching her as a prisoner watches a judge. He had a great yearning to believe. Fear, anguish, anger, were in Igraine's heart, but she showed none of the three as she stood forward and looked into the man's eyes with a steadfastness no honour could gainsay.

"Pelleas!" she said.

"Girl!"

"Look into my eyes."

He did so without flinching. Igraine took his sword and gave it naked into his hand.

"Listen! Gorlois told you a lie."

"Igraine!"

"Do you believe me, Pelleas? If not, strike with the sword, for I will live no longer."

The man gave a sudden cry, like one who leaps over a precipice, threw the sword far away into the grass, and falling on his knees, buried his face in his hands.

XII

Igraine stood and watched Pelleas as he knelt in the grass at her feet with his face hidden from her by his hands. She saw the curve of his strong neck, the sweep of his great shoulders. She even counted the steel plates in his shoulder pieces, and marked the tinge of grey in his coronal of hair.

Calm had come upon her with the trust won by the confessional of the sword. She felt sure of the man in her heart, and eased of a double burden since she had told him the truth and brought him to a declaration of his faith. She knew well from instinct that her honour stood sure in Pelleas's heart.

Going to him, she bent and touched his head with her hand.

"Pelleas," she said very softly.

The man groaned and would not look at her.

"Mea culpa, mea culpa!" was his cry.

Igraine smiled like a young mother as she put his hands from his face with a gradual insistence. It was right that he should kneel to her, but it was also right that she should forgive and forget like a woman. Yet as she stood and held his hands in hers, Pelleas hung his head and would not so much as look into her face. He was convicted in his own heart, and contrite according to the deep measure of his manhood.

Igraine touched his hair softly with her fingers, and there was a great light in her eyes as she bent over him.

"Come, Pelleas, and sit by me under the trees, and I will tell you the whole tale."

Never had she seemed so stately or so superb in Pelleas's eyes as she stood before him that morning, strong and sorrowful with the burden of her past. He knelt and looked up at her, knowing himself pardoned, humbled to see love in the ascendent so soon upon her face as she looked down at him from her golden aureole of hair.

"I am forgiven?" he said.

"Ah, Pelleas!"

"You have shamed me; I am a broken man."

He rose up half wearily and stood looking at her as though some mysterious influence had parted them suddenly asunder. So expressive were his eyes, that Igraine read a distant anguish in them on the instant, and fathomed his thoughts, to the troubling of her own heart.

"Look not so," she said, "as though a gulf lay deep between us here."

"How else should I look at you, Igraine, when you are wife to Gorlois?"

"Never in my soul."

"How can that help us?"

Igraine winced at the words and took refuge in silence. She went and seated herself at the foot of a gnarled oak. Pelleas followed her and lay down more than a sword's length away, leaving a stretch of green turf between, a thing insignificant in itself, yet full of meaning to the girl's instinctive watchfulness. The man's face too was turned from her towards the valley, and she could only see the curve of his cheek and chin as she began to speak to him of that which was in her heart.

"You know the man Gorlois?" she said.

Pelleas nodded.

"In Winchester Gorlois saw my face and straightway pestered me as he had been turned into my shadow. By chance he had rendered me service, and from the favour casually conferred plucked the right of thrusting his perpetual homage upon me. I trusted Gorlois little from the beginning, and trusted him less as the weeks went by. His eyes frightened me, and his mouth made my soul shiver; the more importunate he grew the more I began to fear him."

Pelleas shifted his sword and said nothing.

"A day came when the man Gorlois grew tired of courtesies, and would be gainsaid no longer. It was in Radamanth's garden; we quarrelled, and the man laid hands upon me and crushed me against the wall to thieve a kiss. In my anger I broke from him and ran into my uncle's house. The same night I fled to an abbey, the abbey of St. Helena, and left Winchester in my dress at dawn."

Igraine could see the muscles of Pelleas's jaw standing out contracted as though his teeth were clenched in an access of anger. He was breathing deeply through his nostrils, and his hands plucked at the grass with a terse snapping sound. These things pleased Igraine, and she went on forthwith.

"I left Winchester on foot at dawn and travelled towards Sarum, for I heard that Uther the King was there, and it was greatly in my mind, sire, to see his face. An old merchant friend of Radamanth's overtook me on the road; at a ford the horse he had lent me fell and twisted my ankle. I was carried to Eudol's house, and lay abed there many days, learning little to my comfort that Gorlois had ridden out and was hunting me through the countryside. Recovered of my strain, and fearful of Gorlois's trackers, I held on for Sarum through the woods, and lodged the same night in a hermitage in a little valley. Here the first piece of craft overtook me, for early in the morning outside the hermitage I saw a knight ride by on a black horse, bearing red harness, and armed at all points like to you."

Pelleas turned his head for the first time and looked at her as though with some sudden suspicion of what was to follow. Igraine saw something in his dark eyes that made her heart hurry. His face was like the face of a man who fronts a storm of wind and rain with brows furrowed and eyes half-closed. There was much that was threatening in his look, a subdued ominous wrath like a storm nursed in the bosom of a cloud.

Igraine told the whole quaint tale, how she followed Gorlois in faith, how she was led into the forest, bewitched there, and made a wife, mesmerised into a false affection for the man by Merlin's craft. It was a grim tale, with a clear contour of truth, and credible by reason of its very strangeness. It was sufficient to manifest to Pelleas how Igraine's strong love for him had lost her her liberty and made her the victim of a man's lust.

When she had ended the tale Pelleas left the grass at her feet and began to pace under the trees like a sentinel on a wall. His scabbard clanged occasionally against his greaves. Masses of young bracken covered the ground between the trees with a rich carpet of green, and his armour shone like red wrath under the wreathing arcs of foliage. His face was dark and moody with the turmoil of thought, but there was no visible agitation upon him; nothing of the aspen, more of the unbending oak. Igraine leant against her tree and watched him with a curious care, wondering what would be the outcome of all this silence. Down in the valley the pool glistened, and she could see Garlotte walking in the cottage garden. How different was this child's lot to hers. With what warm philosophy could she have changed Pelleas into a shepherd, and taken the part of Garlotte to herself.

Presently Pelleas stayed in his stride through the bracken, and came and stood before her, looking not into her face but beyond her into the deeps of the wood.

"Tell me more, Igraine."

"What more would you hear from me?"

"That which is bitterest of all."

"God, must I tell you that!"

"Let us both drink it to the dregs."

Igraine's face and neck coloured rich as one of Garlotte's red roses, and she seemed to shrink from the man's eyes behind the quivering sunlight of her hair. She put her hands to her breast and stood in a strain of thought, of struggle against the infinite unfitness of the past.

Pelleas saw her trouble, and his strong face softened on the instant. He had forgotten milder things in his grappling of the truth. Igraine's red and troubled look revived the finer instincts of his manhood.

"Never trouble, child," he said; "I know enough of Gorlois to read the rest."