And still as one
a-dream he felt her slip from his failing clasp, felt her arms close
about him, aiding him to earth.

"Thou'rt hurt!" she cried. "O, thou'rt wounded! And I never guessed!"

"'Tis but my arm--in sooth--and--"

But she hushed him with soft mother-cries and tender-spoke commands,
and aiding him to the brook, laid him thereby to lave his hurt within
the cool, sweet water; and, waking with the smart, Beltane sighed and
turned to look up at her. Now did she, meeting his eyes, put up one
white hand, setting back sombre hood and snowy wimple, and stooping
tenderly above him, behold, in that moment down came the shining glory
of her lustrous hair to fall about the glowing beauty of her face,
touching his brow like a caress.

Then, at last, memory awoke within him, and lifting himself upon a
feeble elbow, he stared upon her glowing loveliness with wide, glad
eyes.

"Helen!" he sighed, "O--Helen!" And, so sighing, fell back, and lay
there pale and wan within the dawn, but with a smile upon his pallid
lips.

CHAPTER XX

HOW BELTANE PLIGHTED HIS TROTH IN THE GREEN

Beltane yawned prodigiously, stretched mightily, and opening sleepy
eyes looked about him. He lay 'neath shady willows within a leafy
bower; before him a brook ran leaping to the sunshine and filling the
warm, stilly air with its merry chatter and soft, laughing noises,
while beyond the rippling water the bank sloped steeply upward to the
green silence of the woods.

Now as Beltane lay thus 'twixt sleeping and waking, it seemed to him
that in the night he had dreamed a wondrous dream, and fain he would
have slept again. But now from an adjacent thicket a horse whinnied and
Beltane, starting at the sound, felt his wound throb with sudden pain,
and looking down, beheld his arm most aptly swathed in bandages of
fair, soft linen. Now would he have sat up, but marvelled to find it so
great a matter, and propping himself instead upon a weak elbow glanced
about him expectantly. And lo, in that moment, one spake near by in
voice rich and soft like the call of merle or mavis:

"Beltane," said the voice, "Beltane the Smith!"

With heart quick-beating, Beltane turned and beheld the Duchess Helen
standing beside him, her glorious hair wrought into two long braids
wherein flowers were cunningly entwined. Straightway he would have
risen, but she forbade him with a gesture and, coming closer, sank
beside him on her knees, and being there blushed and