he
gulls that circled overhead. Before the eyes of his flesh was stretched
a wide desert of sky and water, and before the eyes of his mind the
hopeless desert of his thirty-eight years.

He was almost tempted to speak. The note of sympathy in her voice
allured him, and sympathy was to him as drink to one who perishes of
thirst. A passionate, indefinable longing impelled him to pour out the
story that in Worcester he had related unto Kenneth, and thus to set
himself better in her eyes; to have her realize indeed that if he was
come so low it was more the fault of others than his own. The temptation
drew him at a headlong pace, to be checked at last by the memory that
those others who had brought him to so sorry a condition were her own
people. The humour passed. He laughed softly, and shook his head.

"There is nothing that I can tell you, child. Let us rather talk of
Kenneth."

"I do not wish to talk of Kenneth."

"Nay, but you must. Willy-nilly must you. Think you it is only a
war-worn, hard-drinking, swashbuckling ruffler that can sin? Does it not
also occur to you that even a frail and tender little maid may do wrong
as well?"

"What wrong have I done?" she cried in consternation.

"A grievous wrong to this poor lad. Can you not realize how the only
desire that governs him is the laudable one of appearing favourably in
your eyes?"

"That desire gives rise, then, to curious manifestations."

"He is mistaken in the means he adopts, that is all. In his heart his
one aim is to win your esteem, and, after all, it is the sentiment that
matters, not its manifestation. Why, then, are you unkind to him?"

"But I am not unkind. Or is it unkindness to let him see that I mislike
his capers? Would it not be vastly more unkind to ignore them and
encourage him to pursue their indulgence? I have no patience with him."

"As for those capers, I am endeavouring to show you that you yourself
have driven him to them."

"Sir Crispin," she cried out, "you grow tiresome."

"Aye," said he, "I grow tiresome. I grow tiresome because I preach of
duty. Marry, it is in truth a tiresome topic."

"How duty? Of what do you talk?" And a flush of incipient anger spread
now on her fair cheek.

"I will be clearer," said he imperturbably. "This lad is your betrothed.
He is at heart a good lad, an honourable and honest lad--at times haply
over-honest and over-honourable; but let that be. To please a whim, a
caprice, you set yourself to f