ipped her in a look and
she, content to be so worshipped, sat with head down-bent, as sweetly
demure, as proud and stately as if--as if she ne'er in all her days had
fled with hampering draperies caught up so high!

So Beltane stood worshipping her as she had been some young goddess in
whose immortal beauty all beauty was embodied.

At last he spake, hoarse and low and passionate:

"Helen!" said he, "O Helen!"

Slowly, slowly the Duchess lifted stately head and looked on him: but
now, behold! her glance was high and proud, her scarlet mouth firm-set
like the white and dimpled chin below and her eyes swept him with look
calm and most dispassionate.

"Ah, my lord Beltane," she said, sweet-voiced, "what do you here within
the privacy of Genevra's garden?"

Now because of the sweet serenity of her speech, because of the calm,
unswerving directness of her gaze, my Beltane felt at sudden loss, his
outstretched arms sank helplessly and he fell a-stammering.

"Helen, I--I--O Helen, I have dreamed of, yearned for this hour! To see
thee again--to hear thy voice, and yet--and yet--"

"Well, my lord?"

Now stood Beltane very still, staring on her in dumb amaze, and the
pain in his eyes smote her, insomuch that she bent to her embroidery
and sewed three stitches woefully askew.

"O surely, surely I am mad," quoth he wondering, "or I do dream. For
she I seek is a woman, gentle and prone to forgiveness, one beyond all
women fair and brave and noble, in whose pure heart can nothing evil
be, in whose gentle eyes her gentle soul lieth mirrored, whose tender
lips be apt and swift to speak mercy and forgiveness. Even as her soft,
kind hands did bind up my wounds, so methought she with gentle sayings
might heal my grieving heart--and now--now--"

"O my lord," she sighed, bending over idle fingers, "methinks you came
seeking an angel of heaven and find here--only a woman."

"Yet 'tis this woman I do love and ever must--'tis this woman I did
know as Fidelis--"

"Alas!" she sighed again, "alas, poor Fidelis, thou didst drive him
from thee into the solitary wild-wood. So is poor Fidelis lost to thee,
methinks--"

"Nay, Helen--O Helen, be just to me--thou dost know I loved Fidelis--"

"Yet thou didst spurn and name him traitor and drave him from thee!"

Now of a sudden he strode towards her, and as he came her bosom
swelled, her lashes drooped, for it seemed he meant to clasp her to his
heart. But lo! being only man, my Belta