cried. "Mary has told me that you make a start
this morning, and we have waited here this hour and more on the chance
of seeing you pass. Come, lad, and have a last stoup of English ale, for
many a time amid the sour French wines you will long for the white foam
under your nose, and the good homely twang of it."

Nigel had to decline the draft, for it meant riding into Guildford town,
a mile out of his course, but very gladly he agreed with Mary that
they should climb the path to the old shrine and offer a last orison
together. The knight and Aylward waited below with the horses; and so it
came about that Nigel and Mary found themselves alone under the solemn
old Gothic arches, in front of the dark shadowed recess in which gleamed
the golden reliquary of the saint. In silence they knelt side by side
in prayer, and then came forth once more out of the gloom and the shadow
into the fresh sunlit summer morning. They stopped ere they descended
the path, and looked to right and left at the fair meadows and the blue
Wey curling down the valley.

"What have you prayed for, Nigel?" said she.

"I have prayed that God and His saints will hold my spirit high and will
send me back from France in such a fashion that I may dare to come to
you and to claim you for my own."

"Bethink you well what it is that you say, Nigel," said she. "What you
are to me only my own heart can tell; but I would never set eyes upon
your face again rather than abate by one inch that height of honor and
worshipful achievement to which you may attain."

"Nay, my dear and most sweet lady, how should you abate it, since it is
the thought of you which will nerve my arm and uphold my heart?"

"Think once more, my fair lord, and hold yourself bound by no word which
you have said. Let it be as the breeze which blows past our faces and
is heard of no more. Your soul yearns for honor. To that has it ever
turned. Is there room in it for love also? or is it possible that both
shall live at their highest in one mind? Do you not call to mind that
Galahad and other great knights of old have put women out of their lives
that they might ever give their whole soul and strength to the winning
of honor? May it not be that I shall be a drag upon you, that your heart
may shrink from some honorable task, lest it should bring risk and pain
to me? Think well before you answer, my fair lord, for indeed my very
heart would break if it should ever happen that through love of me