A gloom seemed to have fallen on the Forest, and even the young foliage6 looked darker, heavier, less bright with the freshness of spring. The open woods were full of a listening sadness, a mysterious expectancy7; for Death was out, Death and the Lord of Troy. Yet Mellis was touched by no such melancholy8, no sinister9 forebodings; her man’s life was in her hands, her eyes were keen and watchful10; danger gave a sparkle to her beauty; the day’s need steadied her heart.
Martin Valliant watched her, and marveled. He forgot his wounds in looking at her forest-shaded face with its clean, clear comeliness12, its alert, proud self-trust. There was nothing more wonderful than her eyes and the way they filled with light when meeting his. Their color seemed so elusive13, changing from blue to black, and sometimes they were all a-glimmer like water touched by the sun. He looked at her lips, her white throat, her hair, the hands that held the reins14, and had to tell himself that she was his. Every part of her seemed a piece of enchantment15. She was so fair in his eyes that the thought of touching16 her seemed sacrilege.
He found her smiling at him shyly.
“Have we lost our tongues, dear man?”
“So much has happened, and you——”
“And I?”
“Sometimes I think that you do not belong to this world, that you will vanish away.”
She looked at him intently, curiously17, for it seemed to her that his mood foreshadowed some solemn and subtle fancy that was working in his heart. He desired her, and yet did not desire her. The glamour18 of a mystical self-renunciation was not dead in Martin Valliant.
“I am flesh and blood, God be thanked for it.”
He half closed his eyes.
“I see more than that.”
She colored.
“See the woman in me. For it is the man in you that has made me dream dreams.”
They rode in silence for a while, but both were conscious of a listening tenderness, a mysterious and unsolved unrest.
“Martin?”
He glanced at her gravely.
“Life and Death march on either side of us. We have to take thought for to-morrow and to-morrow’s morrow. It will not be easy.”
She saw his eyes grow dark and deep.
“Nor is life easy, child. I hold your soul in pledge, and this place is full of our enemies. And what am I but a broken man, an outcast?”
“You are my love,” she said simply.
He did not speak for a moment, and there were lines on his forehead.
“Is God satisfied? Does He look on us as two children? I could show Him my heart—without fear—and yet——”
“Well?”
“I could die and not be afraid. But life is yours, and the beauty and the sweetness thereof, and where is the chalice19 for such wine? Are my hands fit to carry it?”
“I ask for no other hands. Let God judge.”
Martin rode at her side, sunk in deep thought. He had not forgotten Peter Swartz and the inn of the Crossed Keys at Gawdy Town. Life and liberty might lie that way, escape from the vengeance20 of my Lord of Troy, and from the curses of the brethren of Paradise; but it would be at the cost of exile, of wanderings in a strange land. Was Mellis made for such a life? Was not her very beauty too rich and perilous21? Moreover, all hope had not vanished for her out of England; Richmond was on the seas; the Red Rose might yet out-flower the White.
Mellis was waiting on his meditations22. Her mind was most obstinately23 made up; she was no green child or the victim of fanciful tenors24; life had taught her much; the rough wisdom begotten25 of her adventures had been wedded26 to the sure instincts of the woman. Martin Valliant was her man; he was strong, and could keep her from the hands of other men, for she had no waywardness, no wish to change her lovers. Some women are born to be courtesans, but Mellis was not one of them.
“Still thinking, Martin?”
He hesitated, and then told her of Swartz, and the inn at Gawdy Town. Her eyes brightened.
“Good Swartz! Good comrade! Why, that is a plan worth trying when matters look so desperate. The men of Gawdy Town have no great love for my Lord of Troy.”
Martin looked at her in astonishment27, for the brave adventurousness28 of her face betrayed no fear of the future.
“Mellis. Have you considered?”
“Everything. More than you can guess, dear lad. Why, I am wiser than you are, and tougher in the ways of the world. We should find ourselves in France, taking the open road, sleeping in all manner of odd places, sometimes begging, sometimes singing for pay. The great vagabond life! But Swartz was right. Strong men soon jostle free, get a higher seat than their fellows. I have wandered; I know what can be done. Martin Valliant was born to fight and to rule.”
But she had not won him yet. His mystical love still glimpsed self-sacrifice, renunciation.
It was before they came to the Rondel river that they sighted a forester’s cottage in a deep hollow under the woods. Mellis knew the place, and after scanning it awhile turned her horse toward it.
“Jeremy Marvel11 lived there—a good fellow. He may sell us what we need.”
She smiled at Martin’s blank face.
“Yes. I have a little money. I am quite shrewd, good sir. I kept it under my bed at Woodmere, and a little money is the best friend in the world.”
They rode down to the cottage and found it
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