The great forest was so silent, so lonely, the aisles of a vast church could have been no more sanctified by holy stillness.

Even the summer wind that trembled in the upper boughs of the huge trees had not penetrated their thick branches and intertwined leaves, so that the grass and flowers were standing erect, untroubled by a breath of air, and the sun, that dazzled without on the town of Frankfort did not touch the glowing green gloom of the forest.

Seated low on the grass by a wayside shrine that held a little figure of the Madonna, Nathalie the witch, hunched together in a brown cloak, looked keenly into the depths of cool shade between the tree trunks.

She was watching the distant figure of a lady tremble into sight among the leaves of the undergrowth.

A lady who walked hesitatingly and fearfully; as she drew near, the witch could see that the long yellow dress she held up was torn and soiled, and that her hair hung disarranged on her shoulders; breathing in a quick, fatigued manner she came towards the shrine, but seeing the witch she stopped abruptly and her grey eyes darkened with apprehension.

“‘What is amiss with Jacobea of Martzburg,” asked the witch in her expressionless way, “that she walks the forest disarrayed and alone?”

“I am lost,” answered Jacobea, shrinking. “How do you know me?

“By your face,” said Nathalie. “How is it you are lost?

“Will you tell me the way to Frankfort?” asked Jacobea wearily. “I have walked since noon. I was accompanying the Empress from the tournament and my horse broke away with me — I slipped from the saddle. Now I have lost him.”

Nathalie smiled faintly.

“I know not where I am,” said Jacobea, still with that look of apprehension in her sweet eyes. “Will you set me on my path?”

She glanced at the shrine, then at the witch, and put her hand to her forehead; dazed, she seemed, and bewildered.

“Of what are you afraid?” asked Nathalie.

“Oh, why should I be afraid!” answered Jacobea, with a start. “But — why, it is very lonely here and I must get home.”

“Let me tell your fortune,” said the witch, slowly rising. “You have a curious fortune, and I will reveal it without gold or silver.”

“No!” Jacobea’s voice was agitated. “I have no credence in those things. I will pay you to show me the way out of the forest.”

But the witch had crossed softly to her side, and, to her manifest shrinking terror, caught hold of her hand.

“What do you imagine you hold in your palm?” she smiled.

Jacobea endeavoured to draw her hand away, the near presence of the woman quickened her unnamed terror.

“Lands and castles,” said the witch, while her fingers tightened on the striving wrist. “Gold and loneliness —”

“You know me,” answered Jacobea, in anger. “There is no magic in this...let me go!” The witch dropped the lady’s hand and smoothed her own together.

“I do not need the lines in your palm to tell me your fortune,” she said sharply. “I know more of you than you would care to hear, Jacobea of Martzburg.”

The lady turned away and stepped quickly but aimlessly down the shaded glade.

Nathalie, dragging her brown cloak, came lightly after.

“You cannot escape,” she said. “You may walk in and out the trees until you die of weariness, yet never find your way to Frankfort.”

She laid her small thin fingers on the soft velvet of Jacobea’s yellow sleeve and blinked up into her startled eyes.

“Who are you?” cried the lady, with a touch of desperation in her faint voice. “And what do you want with me?”

The witch licked her pale lips.

“Come with me and I will show you.”

Jacobea shuddered.

“No, I will not.”

“You cannot find your way alone,” nodded the witch.

The lady hesitated; she looked around her at the motionless aisles of trees, the silent glades, she looked up at the arching boughs and clustering leaves concealing the sky.

“Indeed I will nay you well if you will guide me out of this,” she entreated.

“Come with me now,” answered Nathalie, “and afterwards I will set you on your way.”

“To what end should I go with you?” exclaimed Jacobea. “I know you not, and, God help me, I mistrust you.”

The witch shot a scornful glance over the lady’s tall figure, supple with the strength of youth. “What evil could I do you?” she asked.

Jacobea considered her intently; indeed she was small, seemed frail also; Jacobea’s white fingers could have crushed the life out of her lean throat.

Still she was reluctant.

“To what end?” she repeated.

Nathalie did not answer, but turned into a grass-grown path that twisted through the trees, and Jacobea, afraid of the loneliness, followed her slowly.

As they went through the forest, the green, still forest, with no flower to vary the clinging creepers and great blossomless plants, with no sound of bird or insect to mingle with their light tread and the sweep of their garments on the ground, Jacobea was aware that her senses were being dulled and drugged with the silence and the strangeness; she felt no longer afraid or curious. After a while they came upon a pool lying in a hollow and grown about with thick, dark ferns; the sunless waters were black and dull, on the surface of them floated some dead leaves and the vivid unwholesome green of a tangled weed.

A young man in a plain dark dress was seated on the opposite bank.

On his knees was an open book, and his long straight hair hung either side of his face and brushed the yellow page.

Behind him stood the shattered trunk of a blasted tree, grown with fan-shaped fungi of brilliant scarlet and blotched purple and orange that glowed gorgeously in the universal cold soft greenness.

“Oh me!” murmured Jacobea.

The young man lifted his eyes from the book and looked at her across the black water.

Jacobea would have fled, would have flung herself into the forest with no thought but that of escape from those eyes gazing at her over the pages of that ancient volume; but the witch’s loathsome little hands closed on hers with a marvellous strength and drew her, shuddering, round the edge of the pond.

The youth shut the book, stretched his slender limbs, and, half turning on his side, lay and watched.

Jacobea’s noble and lovely figure, clothed in a thick soft velvet of a luminous yellow hue; her blonde hair, straying on her shoulders and mingling with the glowing tint of her gown; her grave and sweet face, lit and guarded by grey eyes, soft and frightened, made a fair picture against the sombre background of the dark wood.

A picture marred only by the insignificant and drab-coloured figure of the little witch who held her hand and dragged her through the dank grass.

“Do you remember me?” asked the youth.

Jacobea turned her head away.

“Let go of her, Nathalie,” continued the youth impatiently; he rested his elbow on the closed book and propped his chin on his hand; his eyes rested eagerly and admiringly on the lady’s shuddering fairness.

“She will run,” said Nathalie, but she loosened her hold.

Jacobea did not stir; she shook the hand Nathalie had held and caressed it with the other. The young man put back his heavy hair.

“Do you know me?”

She slowly turned her face, pearl pale above the glowing colour of her dress.

“Yes, you came to my castle for shelter once.”

Dirk did not lower his intense, ardent gaze.

“Well, how did I reward your courtesy? I told you something.”

She would not answer.

“I told you something,” repeated Dirk. “And you have not forgotten it.”

“Let me go,” she said. “I do not know who you are nor what you mean. Let me go.”

She turned as if to move away, but sank instead on to one of the moss-covered boulders that edged the pond and clasped her fingers over the shining locks straying across her bosom. “You have never been the same since that time you sheltered me,” said Dirk.

She stiffened with dread and pride.

“Ye are some evil thing,” she said; her glance was fierce for the passive witch. “Why was I brought here?”

“Because it was my wish,” answered Dirk gravely. “Your horse does not often carry you away, Jacobea of Martzburg, and leave you in a trackless forest.”

The lady started at his knowledge.

“That also was my will,” said Dirk.

“Your will!” she echoed.

Dirk smiled, with an ugly show of his teeth.

“Belike the horse was bewitched — have ye not heard of such a thing?”

“Santa Maria!” she cried.

Dirk sat up and clasped his long fingers round his knees.

“You have given a youth I know a post at Court,” he said. “Why?”

Jacobea shivered and could not move; she looked drearily at the black water and the damp masses of fern, then with a slow horror at the figure of the young man seated under the blasted tree.

“I do not know,” she answered weakly, “I never disliked him.”

“As ye did me,” added Dirk.

“Maybe I had no cause to love you,” she returned, goaded. “Why did you ever come to my castle? why did I ever see you?”

She put her cold hand over her eyes.

“No matter for that,” mocked Dirk. “So ye liked my comrade Theirry?”

She answered as if forced against her will. “Well enough I liked him. Was he not pleasured to encounter me again, and since he was doing nought — I— but why do you question me? Can it be that you are jealous?”

The young man pulled his heavy brows together.

“Am I a silly maid to be jealous? Meddle not with things ye cannot measure, it had been better for you had you never seen my comrade’s fair face — ay, and for me also,” and he frowned “Surely he is free to do as he may list,” returned Jacobea. “If he choose to come to Court.” “If ye choose to tempt him,” answered Dirk. “But enough of that.”

He rose and leant against the tree; above his slender shoulder rose the jagged tongue of grey wood and the smooth colour of the clustering fungi, and beyond that the forest sank into immense depths of still gloom.

Jacobea strove desperately with her dull dread and terror, but it seemed to her as if a sickly vapour was rising from the black pool that chilled her blood to horror; she could not escape Dirk’s steady eyes that were like bright stones in his smooth face.

“Come here,” he said.

Jacobea made no movement to obey until the witch clutched her arm, when she shook off the clinging fingers and approached the spot where Dirk waited.

“I think you have bewitched me,” she said drearily.

“Not I, another has done that,” he answered. “Certes, ye are slow in mating, Jacobea of Martzburg.”

A little shuddering breath stirred her parted lips; she looked to right and left, saw nothing but the enclosing forest, and turned her frightened eyes on Dirk.

“I know some little magic,” he continued. “Shall I show you the man you would wish to make Lord of Martzburg?”

“There is no one,” she said feebly.

“You lie,” he answered. “As I could prove.”

“As you cannot prove,” she returned, clasping her hands together.

Dirk smiled.

“Why, you are a fair thing and a gentle, but you have rebellious thoughts, thoughts ye would blush to whisper at the confessional grate.”

She moved her lips, but did not speak.

“Why did your steward come with ye to Frankfort?” asked Dirk. “And his wife stay as chatelaine of Martzburg? It had been more fitting had he remained. What reward will he receive for his services as your henchman at the Court?”

Jacobea drew her handkerchief from her girdle and pressed it to her lips.

“What reward do you imagine I should offer?” she answered very slowly.

“I cannot tell,” said Dirk, with a hot force behind every word. “For I do not know if you are a fool or no, but this I know, the man waits a word from you —”

“Stop!” said Jacobea.

But Dirk continued ruthlessly —

“He waits, I tell you —”

“Oh God, for what?” she cried.

“For you to say —‘you think me fair, Sebastian, you know me rich and all my life shall prove me loving, and only a red-browed woman in Martzburg Castle prevents you coming from my footstool to my side’— said you that, he would take horse tomorrow for Martzburg and return a free man.”

The handkerchief fell from Jacobea’s fingers and fluttered on the dark ferns.

“You are a fiend,”............