aven's wanted, there I haven find,
Nor e'er for me is star of guidance lost--'"

Her voice breaking a little, Ferne made nearer approach to the green
bank where she rested. "Do you learn by heart my verses, lady?"
he asked.

"Ay," she answered, "I did ever love sweet poetry." Her voice thrilled,
and she gazed past him at the blue heaven showing between the oak
leaves. "If prayer with every breath availeth," she said, "no doubt your
Dione will bring your safe return."

"Of whom do I write, calling her Dione?"

She shook her head. "I know not. None of us at court knows. Master Dyer
saith--but surely that one is not worthy--" She ceased to speak, nor
knew there had been in her tone both pain and wistfulness. Presently she
laughed out, with the facile gayety that one in her position must needs
be practised in. "Ah, sir, tell me her name! Is she of the court?"

He nodded, "Yes."

Damaris clapped her hands. "What lovely hypocrite have we among us? What
Lady Pure Innocence, wondering with the rest of the world?--and all the
while Cleon's latest sonnet hot against her heart! Is she tall, sir,
or short?"

"Of your height."

The lady shrugged. "Oh, I like not your half-way people! And her
hair--but halt! We know her hair is dark:

'Ah, darkness loved beyond all light!'

Her eyes--"

He bent his head, moving yet nearer to her. "Her eyes--her eyes are
wonderful! Where got you your eyes, Dione--Dione?"

Crimsoning deeply, Damaris started up, the racket escaping her clasp,
and her hands going out in a gesture of dismay and anger. "Sir,--sir,"
she stammered, "since you make a mock of me, I will begone. No, sir; let
me pass! Ah, ... how unworthy of you!"

Ferne had caught her by the wrists. "No, no! Dear lady, to whom I am
wellnigh a stranger--sweetheart with whom I have talked scarce thrice in
all my life--my Dione, to whom my heart is as a crystal, to whom I have
written all things! I must speak now, now before I go this voyage! Think
you it is in me to vex with saucy words, to make a mock of any
gentle lady?"

"I know not what to think," she answered, in a strange voice. "I am too
dull to understand."

"Think that I tell you God's truth!" he cried. "Understand that--" He
checked himself, seeing how pale she was and how flutteringly came her
breath; then, trained as she herself to instantly draw an airy veil
between true feeling and the exigency of the moment, he became once more
the simple courtier. "Y