t I wander about the world and its cheaping-steads like one of
the chap-men? Nay, I dwell in the Wood beyond the World, and nowhere
else. What hath put this word into thy mouth?"

He said: "Pardon me, Lady, if I have misdone; but thus it was: Mine own
eyes beheld thee going down the quays of our city, and thence a
ship-board, and the ship sailed out of the haven. And first of all went
a strange dwarf, whom I have seen here, and then thy Maid; and then went
thy gracious and lovely body."

The Lady's face changed as he spoke, and she turned red and then pale,
and set her teeth; but she refrained her, and said: "Squire, I see of
thee that thou art no liar, nor light of wit, therefore I suppose that
thou hast verily seen some appearance of me; but never have I been in
Langton, nor thought thereof, nor known that such a stead there was until
thou namedst it e'en now. Wherefore, I deem that an enemy hath cast the
shadow of me on the air of that land."

"Yea, my Lady," said Walter; "and what enemy mightest thou have to have
done this?"

She was slow of answer, but spake at last from a quivering mouth of
anger: "Knowest thou not the saw, that a man's foes are they of his own
house? If I find out for a truth who hath done this, the said enemy
shall have an evil hour with me."

Again she was silent, and she clenched her hands and strained her limbs
in the heat of her anger; so that Walter was afraid of her, and all his
misgivings came back to his heart again, and he repented that he had told
her so much. But in a little while all that trouble and wrath seemed to
flow off her, and again was she of good cheer, and kind and sweet to him
and she said: "But in sooth, however it may be, I thank thee, my Squire
and friend, for telling me hereof. And surely no wyte do I lay on thee.
And, moreover, is it not this vision which hath brought thee hither?"

"So it is, Lady," said he.

"Then have we to thank it," said the Lady, "and thou art welcome to our
land."

And therewith she held out her hand to him, and he took it on his knees
and kissed it: and then it was as if a red-hot iron had run through his
heart, and he felt faint, and bowed down his head. But he held her hand
yet, and kissed it many times, and the wrist and the arm, and knew not
where he was.

But she drew a little away from him, and arose and said: "Now is the day
wearing, and if we are to bear back any venison we must buckle to the
work. So arise, Squire,