r Zachary's discomfiture.

She rode forth looking straight before her, over the pointed ears of
Icon. She was riding to Hugh, and, they who stood by must not see the
love-light in her eyes.

Grave and serene, her head held high, she paced the white palfrey
through the gates. And if the porter marked a wondrous shining in her
eyes--well, the sun began to slant its rays, and she rode straight
toward the west.

Zachary mounted the steps and hastened across the hall, followed by
Deborah.

Mark thereupon enacted Mistress Deborah, and Beaumont, Master Zachary;
while the page sat down on the steps to laugh.

The porter clanged to the gates.

The day's work was done.

CHAPTER LVIII

THE WARRIOR HEART

As Mora turned off the highway, and pressed Icon deep into the glades,
she cried over and over aloud, for there was none to hear: "I go to my
husband, and I choose to ride alone."

How wondrous it seemed, this going to him; a second giving, a deeper
surrender, a fuller yielding.

When she went to him in the crypt, her body had recoiled, her spirit
had shrunk, shamed, humbled, and unwilling. Her mind alone, governed
by her will, had driven her along the path of her resolve, holding her
upon the stretcher, until too late to cry out or to return.

Now--how different! Free as air, alone, uncoerced, even unexpected,
she left her own home, and her own people, to ride, unattended,
straight to the arms of the man who had won her.

A wild joy seized and shook her.

The soft, mysterious glades, beneath vast, leafy domes, seemed
enchanted ground. The hoofs of Icon thudded softly on the moss. The
stillness seemed alive with whispering life. Rabbits sat still to
peep, then whisked and ran. Great birds rose suddenly, on whirring
wings. Tiny birds, fearless, stayed on their twigs and sang.

There was scurrying among ferns and rocks, telling of bright, watchful
eyes; of life, safeguarding itself, unseen. Yet all these varied
sounds, Nature disturbed in the shady haunts which were her rightful
home, did but emphasize the vast stillness, the utter solitude, the
complete remoteness from human dwelling-place.

Shining through parted boughs and slowly moving leaves, the sunlight
fell, in golden bars or shifting yellow patches, on the glade.

The joy which thrilled his rider, seemed to communicate itself to Icon.
He galloped over the moss on the broad rides, and would scarce be
restrained when passing between grea