re of whose evil in her pure innocence
she could not guess; his very melancholy, his misfortunes, and the deeds
she had heard assigned to him, all had served to fire her fancy and more
besides, although, until that moment, she knew it not.

Subconsciously all this had long dwelt in her mind. And now of a
sudden that self-deriding speech of Crispin's had made her aware of its
presence and its meaning.

She loved him. That men said his life had not been nice, that he was
a soldier of fortune, little better than an adventurer, a man of no
worldly weight, were matters of no moment then to her. She loved him.
She knew it now because he had mockingly bidden her to think whether
Kenneth had cause to be jealous of him, and because upon thinking of it,
she found that did Kenneth know what was in her heart, he must have more
than cause.

She loved him with that rare love that will urge a woman to the last
sacrifice a man may ask; a love that gives and gives, and seeks nothing
in return; that impels a woman to follow the man at his bidding, be his
way through the world cast in places never so rugged; cleaving to him
where all besides shall have abandoned him; and, however dire his lot,
asking of God no greater blessing than that of sharing it.

And to such a love as this Crispin was blind--blind to the very
possibility of its existence; so blind that he laughed to scorn the idea
of a puny milksop being jealous of him. And so, while she sat, her soul
all mastered by her discovery, her face white and still for very awe of
it, he to whom this wealth was given, pursued the odious task of wooing
her for another.

"You have observed--you must have observed this insensate jealousy," he
was saying, "and how do you allay it? You do not. On the contrary, you
excite it at every turn. You are exciting it now by having--and I dare
swear for no other purpose--lured me to walk with you, to sit here with
you and preach your duty to you. And when, through jealousy, he shall
have flown to fresh absurdities, shall you regret your conduct and the
fruits it has borne? Shall you pity the lad, and by kindness induce him
to be wiser? No. You will mock and taunt him into yet worse displays.
And through these displays, which are--though you may not have bethought
you of it--of your own contriving, you will conclude that he is no fit
mate for you, and there will be heart-burnings, and years hence perhaps
another Tavern Knight, whose name will not be