led in the thought of those three, and they were ever before his
eyes, as if they had been painted on a table by the best of limners. And
of the two women he thought exceeding much, and cast no wyte upon himself
for running after the desire of strange women. For he said to himself
that he desired not either of the twain; nay, he might not tell which of
the twain, the maiden or the stately queen, were clearest to his eyes;
but sore he desired to see both of them again, and to know what they
were.

So wore the hours till the Wednesday morning, and it was time that he
should bid farewell to his father and get aboard ship; but his father led
him down to the quays and on to the Katherine, and there Walter embraced
him, not without tears and forebodings; for his heart was full. Then
presently the old man went aland; the gangway was unshipped, the hawsers
cast off; the oars of the towing-boats splashed in the dark water, the
sail fell down from the yard, and was sheeted home, and out plunged the
Katherine into the misty sea and rolled up the grey slopes, casting
abroad her ancient withal, whereon was beaten the token of Bartholomew
Golden, to wit a B and a G to the right and the left, and thereabove a
cross and a triangle rising from the midst.

Walter stood on the stern and beheld, yet more with the mind of him than
with his eyes; for it all seemed but the double of what the other ship
had done; and the thought of it as if the twain were as beads strung on
one string and led away by it into the same place, and thence to go in
the like order, and so on again and again, and never to draw nigher to
each other.

CHAPTER III: WALTER HEARETH TIDINGS OF THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER

Fast sailed the Katherine over the seas, and nought befell to tell of,
either to herself or her crew. She came to one cheaping-town and then to
another, and so on to a third and a fourth; and at each was buying and
selling after the manner of chapmen; and Walter not only looked on the
doings of his father's folk, but lent a hand, what he might, to help them
in all matters, whether it were in seaman's craft, or in chaffer. And
the further he went and the longer the time wore, the more he was eased
of his old trouble wherein his wife and her treason had to do.

But as for the other trouble, to wit his desire and longing to come up
with those three, it yet flickered before him; and though he had not seen
them again as one sees people in the stre