not waited long
enough?"

Hand in hand they walked amid the flowers with eyes only for each other
until came they to a stair and up the stair to a chamber, rich with
silk and arras and sweet with spicy odours, a chamber dim-lighted by a
silver lamp pendent from carven roof-beam, whose soft glow filled the
place with shadow. Yet even in this tender dimness, or because of it,
her colour ebbed and flowed, her breath came apace and she stood before
him voiceless and very still save for the sweet tumult of her bosom.

Then Beltane loosed off his sword and laid it upon the silken couch,
but perceiving how she trembled, he set his arm about her and drew her
to the open lattice where the moon made a pool of glory at their feet.

"Dost fear me, Helen?"

"Nay, my lord, I--think not."

"Then wherefore dost tremble?"

"Ah, Beltane, thou methinks dost--tremble also?"

Then Beltane knelt him at her feet and looked upon her loveliness with
yearning eyes, yet touched her not:

"O beloved maid!" said he, "this is, methinks, because of thy sweet
virgin eyes! For I do so love thee, Helen, that, an it be thy will,
e'en now will I leave thee until thy heart doth call me!"

Now stooped she and set her white arms about him and her soft cheek to
his hot brow.

"Dear my lord and--husband," she whispered, "'tis for this so sweet
tenderness in thee that I do love thee best, methinks!"

"And fear me no more?"

"Aye, my lord, I do fear thee when--when thou dost look on me so, but--
when thou dost look on me so--'tis then I do love thee most, my
Beltane!"

Up to his feet sprang Beltane and caught her to him, breast to breast
and lip to lip.

The great sword clattered to the floor; but now, even as she sank in
his embrace, she held him off to stare with eyes of sudden terror as,
upon the stilly night broke a thunderous rumble, a shock, and
thereafter sudden roar and outcry from afar, that swelled to a wild
hubbub of distant voices and cries, lost, all at once, in the raving
clamour of the tocsin.

Locked thus within each other's arms, eye questioned eye, while ever
the bell beat out its fierce alarm. And presently, within the garden
below, was the sound of running feet and, coming to the casement,
Beltane beheld a light that hovered to and fro, growing ever nearer and
brighter, until he saw that he who bore it was Black Roger; and Roger's
face shone with sweat and his breath laboured with his running.

"Master!" he panted, "O m