your eyes wear a look so young in these days
that they are like a child's. In all their beauty, I have never seen
them so before."

"It is because I am a new created thing, as I have told you, love," she
answered, and leaned towards him. "Do you not know I never was a child.
I bring myself to you new born. Make of me then what a woman should
be--to be beloved of husband and of God. Teach me, my Gerald. I am your
child and servant."

'Twas ever thus, that her words when they were such as these were ended
upon his breast as she was swept there by his impassioned arm. She was
so goddess-like and beautiful a being, her life one strangely dominant
and brilliant series of triumphs, and yet she came to him with such
softness and humility of passion, that scarcely could he think himself a
waking man.

"Surely," he said, "it is a thing too wondrous and too full of joy's
splendour to be true."

In the golden afternoon, when the sun was deepening and mellowing towards
its setting, they and their retinue entered Camylott. The bells pealed
from the grey belfry of the old church; the villagers came forth in clean
smocks and Sunday cloaks of scarlet, and stood in the street and by the
roadside curtseying and baring their heads with rustic cheers; little
country girls with red cheeks threw posies before the horses' feet, and
into the equipage itself when they were of the bolder sort. Their
chariot passed beneath archways of flowers and boughs, and from the
battlements of the Tower of Camylott there floated a flag in the soft
wind.

"God save your Graces," the simple people cried. "God give your Graces
joy and long life! Lord, what a beautiful pair they be. And though her
Grace was said to be a proud lady, how sweetly she smiles at a poor body.
God love ye, madam! Madam, God love ye!"

Her Grace of Osmonde leaned forward in her equipage and smiled at the
people with the face of an angel.

"I will teach them to love me, Gerald," she said. "I have not had love
enough."

"Has not all the world loved you?" he said.

"Nay," she answered, "only you, and Dunstanwolde and Anne."

Late at night they walked together on the broad terrace before the Tower.
The blue-black vault of heaven above them was studded with myriads of
God's brilliants; below them was spread out the beauty of the land, the
rolling plains, the soft low hills, the forests and moors folded and
hidden in the swathing robe of the night; from the park and