e, 'and I think, nay, am sure
that our wish will be granted; and I, too, will add a prayer, but will
ask it very humbly, namely, that he will give me another chance or more
to fight in His cause, another life to live instead of this failure.'
'Let us pray too that we may meet, however long the time be before our
meeting,' she said; so they knelt down and prayed, hand fast locked in
hand meantime; and afterwards they sat in that chamber facing the east,
hard by the garden of lilies; and the sun fell from his noontide light
gradually, lengthening the shadows, and when he sank below the sky-line
all the sky was faint, tender, crimson on a ground of blue; the crimson
faded too, and the moon began to rise, but when her golden rim first
showed over the wooded hills, Lawrence arose; they kissed one long
trembling kiss, and then he went and armed himself; and their lips did
not meet again after that, for such a long, long time, so many weary
years; for he had said: 'Ella, watch me from the porch, but touch me not
again at this time; only, when the moon shows level with the lily-heads,
go into the porch and watch me from thence.'

"And he was gone;--you might have heard her heart beating while the moon
very slowly rose, till it shone through the rose-covered trellises, level
with the lily-heads; then she went to the porch and stood there,--

"And she saw him walking down toward the gateway-tower, clad in his mail-
coat, with a bright, crestless helmet on his head, and his trenchant
sword newly grinded, girt to his side; and she watched him going between
the yew-trees, which began to throw shadows from the shining of the
harvest moon. She stood there in the porch, and round by the corners of
the eaves of it looked down towards her and the inside of the porch two
serpent-dragons, carved in stone; and on their scales, and about their
leering eyes, grew the yellow lichen; she shuddered as she saw them stare
at her, and drew closer toward the half-open door; she, standing there,
clothed in white from her throat till over her feet, altogether
ungirdled; and her long yellow hair, without plait or band, fell down
behind and lay along her shoulders, quietly, because the night was
without wind, and she too was now standing scarcely moving a muscle.

"She gazed down the line of the yew-trees, and watched how, as he went
for the most part with a firm step, he yet shrank somewhat from the
shadows of the yews; his long brown hair flowing do