dreading to see her grief.

"Your face is cut, Martin!" said she at last, very softly, "Suffer that
I bathe it." Now turning in amaze I saw her yet upon her knees,
looking up at me despite her falling tears: "Wilt suffer me to bathe
it, Martin?" says she, her voice unshaken by any sob. I shook my head;
but rising she crossed to the door and came back bearing a small
pannikin of water. "I brought this for the purpose," says she.

"Nay, indeed, I--I am well enough--"

"Then I will make you better!"

"No!" says I, angrily.

"Yes!" says she patiently, but setting dimpled chin at me.

"And wherefore, madam?"

"Because I'm so minded, sir!" So saying she knelt close beside me and
fell a-bathing my bruised face as she would (and I helpless to stay
her) yet marvelling within me at the gentle touch of her soft hands and
the tender pity in her tear-wet eyes. "Martin," says she, "as I do thus
cherish your hurts, you shall one day, mayhap, cherish your enemy's--"

"Never!" says I. "You can know me not at all to think so."

"I know you better than you guess, Martin. You think it strange belike
and unmaidenly in me that I should seek you thus, that your name should
come so readily to my lip? But I have remembered the name 'Martin' for
the sake of a boy, long years since, who found a little maid (she was
just ten year old) found her lost and wandering in a wood, very woeful
and frightened and forlorn. And this boy seemed very big and strong
(he was just eleven, he said) and was armed with a bow and arrows 'to
shoot outlaws.' And yet he was very gentle and kindly, laying by his
weapons the better to comfort her sorrows and dry her tears. So he
brought her to a cave he called his 'castle' and showed her a real
sword he kept hidden there (albeit a very rusty one) and said he would
be her knight, to do great things for her some day. Then he brought her
safely home; and he told her his name was Martin and she said hers was
Damaris--"

"Damaris!" said I, starting.

"Often after this they used to meet by a corner of the old park wall
where he had made a place to go up and down by--for six months, I
think, they played together daily, and once he fought a great, rough
boy on her behalf, and when the boy had run away she bathed her
champion's hurts in a little brook--bathed them with her scarf as thus
I do yours. At last she was sent away to a school and the years
passed, but she never forgot the name of Martin, though