the line of flame color beneath, she looked a dwindling cloud; a little while, and she would be claimed of the distance and the dusk.

“It is the George,” I said.

The lady who sat beside me caught her breath. “Ay, sweetheart,” I went on. “She carries one for whom she waited. He has gone from out our life forever.”

She uttered a low cry and turned to me, trembling, her lips parted, her eyes eloquent. “We will not speak of him,” I said. “As if he were dead let his name rest between us. I have another thing to tell thee, dear heart, dear court lady masking as a waiting damsel, dear ward of the King whom his Majesty hath thundered against for so many weary months. Would it grieve thee to go home, after all?”