son of my own mother, the man whom I have longed to
take to my heart. Alas! that I should still be so weak."

"Weak!" she exclaimed, raising her black eyebrows. "I do not think that
even my father himself, who is a hard judge of manhood, would call you
that. But it is, as you may think, sir, a very pleasant thing for me to
hear that you are grieved at what you have done, and I can but rede
that we should go back together, and you should make your peace with the
Socman by handing back your prisoner. It is a sad thing that so small a
thing as a woman should come between two who are of one blood."

Simple Alleyne opened his eyes at this little spurt of feminine
bitterness. "Nay, lady," said he, "that were worst of all. What man
would be so caitiff and thrall as to fail you at your need? I have
turned my brother against me, and now, alas! I appear to have given you
offence also with my clumsy tongue. But, indeed, lady, I am torn both
ways, and can scarce grasp in my mind what it is that has befallen."

"Nor can I marvel at that," said she, with a little tinkling laugh. "You
came in as the knight does in the jongleur's romances, between dragon
and damsel, with small time for the asking of questions. Come," she went
on, springing to her feet, and smoothing down her rumpled frock, "let us
walk through the shaw together, and we may come upon Bertrand with the
horses. If poor Troubadour had not cast a shoe, we should not have had
this trouble. Nay, I must have your arm: for, though I speak lightly,
now that all is happily over I am as frightened as my brave Roland. See
how his chest heaves, and his dear feathers all awry--the little knight
who would not have his lady mishandled." So she prattled on to her hawk,
while Alleyne walked by her side, stealing a glance from time to time at
this queenly and wayward woman. In silence they wandered together over
the velvet turf and on through the broad Minstead woods, where the
old lichen-draped beeches threw their circles of black shadow upon the
sunlit sward.

"You have no wish, then, to hear my story?" said she, at last.

"If it pleases you to tell it me," he answered.

"Oh!" she cried tossing her head, "if it is of so little interest to
you, we had best let it bide."

"Nay," said he eagerly, "I would fain hear it."

"You have a right to know it, if you have lost a brother's favor through
it. And yet----Ah well, you are, as I understand, a clerk, so I
must think of you as one