And now, as I lay there under the clustered stars, my head pillowed on my deer-skin shirt, my mind fell a-groping for reason to bear me out in my strained and strange perplexity.

Why, from the time I first had spoken to her, should thoughts of this strange and ragged maid have so possessed me that each day my memory of her returned, haunting me, puzzling me, plaguing my curiosity till imagination awoke, spurring my revery to the very border of an unknown land where rides Romance, in armour, vizor down.

Until this night I had not crossed that border, nor ever thought to, or dreamed of doing it. No beggar-maiden-seeking king was I by nature, nor ever felt for shabby dress and common folk aught but the mixture of pity and aversion which breeds a kind of charity. And, I once supposed, were