ompanion for my idle hours, a rosy, humble, docile
lass, with no aspirations beyond cleanliness and good temper, who was to
order my household and make me a home. I was to be her head and her law,
but also her sword and shield. That is what I went to look for."

"And you found--me!" she said, and broke into strange laughter.

I bowed.

"In God's name, why did you not go further?"

I suppose she saw in my face why I went no further, for into her own the
color came flaming.

"I am not what I seem!" she cried out. "I was not in that company of
choice!"

I bowed again. "You have no need to tell me that, madam," I said. "I
have eyes. I desire to know why you were there at all, and why you
married me."

She turned from me, until I could see nothing but the coiled wealth of
her hair and the bit of white neck between it and the ruff. We stood so
in silence, she with bent head and fingers clasping and unclasping,
I leaning against the wall and staring at her, for what seemed a long
time. At least I had time to grow impatient, when she faced me again,
and all my irritation vanished in a gasp of admiration.

Oh, she was beautiful, and of a sweetness most alluring and fatal! Had
Medea worn such a look, sure Jason had quite forgot the fleece, and with
those eyes Circe had needed no other charm to make men what she would.
Her voice, when she spoke, was no longer imperious; it was low pleading
music. And she held out entreating hands.

"Have pity on me," she said. "Listen kindly, and have pity on me. You
are a strong man and wear a sword. You can cut your way through trouble
and peril. I am a woman, weak, friendless, helpless. I was in distress
and peril, and I had no arm to save, no knight to fight my battle. I do
not love deceit. Ah, do not think that I have not hated myself for the
lie I have been. But these forest creatures that you take,--will they
not bite against springe and snare? Are they scrupulous as to how they
free themselves? I too was in the toils of the hunter, and I too was not
scrupulous. There was a thing of which I stood in danger that would
have been bitterer to me, a thousand times, than death. I had but
one thought, to escape; how, I did not care,--only to escape. I had a
waiting woman named Patience Worth. One night she came to me, weeping.
She had wearied of service, and had signed to go to Virginia as one of
Sir Edwyn Sandys' maids, and at the last moment her heart had failed
her. There had been pr