Glances again went towards the scarred visage, but Grisell was heedless of them, only listening how Sir Gawaine, Arthur’s nephew, felt that his uncle’s oath must be kept, and offered himself as the bridegroom. Then after the marriage, when he looked on the lady, instead of the loathly hag he beheld a fair damsel! And he was told by her that he might choose whether she should be foul at night and fair by day, or fair each evening and frightful in the daylight hours. His choice at first was that her beauty should be for him alone, in his home, but when she objected that this would be hard on her, since she could thus never show her face when other dames ride with their lords— Then buke him gentle Gawayne, Said, “Lady, that’s but a shill; Because thou art mine own lady Thou shalt have all thy will.” And his courtesy broke the spell of the stepdame, as the lady related— “She witched me, being a fair young lady, To the green forest to dwell, And there must I walk in woman’s likeness, Most like a fiend in hell.” Thenceforth the enchantment was broken, and Sir Gawaine’s bride was fair to see. Grisell had listened intently, absorbed in the narrative, so losing personal thought and feeling that it was startling to her to perceive that Dame Gresford was trying to hush a rude laugh, and one of the young squires was saying, “Hush, hush! for very shame.” Then she saw that they were applying the story to her, and the blood rushed into her face, but the more courteous youth was trying to turn away attention by calling on the harper for “The Beggar of Bethnal Green,” or “Lord Thomas and Fair Annet,” or any merry ballad. So it was borne in on Grisell that to these young gentlemen she was the lady unseemly to see. Yet though a few hot tears flowed, indignant and sorrowful, the sanguine spirit of youth revived. “Sister Avice had told her how to be not loathly in the sight of those whom she could teach to love her.” There was one bound by a pledge! Ah, he would never fulfil it. If he should, Grisell felt a resolute purpose within her that though she could not be transformed, he should not see her loathly in his sight, and in that hope she slept. CHAPTER IX THE KING-MAKER O where is faith? O where is loyalty? SHAKESPEARE, _Henry VI._, _Part II_. GRISELL was disappointed in her hopes of seeing her Countess of Salisbury again, for as she rode into the Castle of York she heard the Earl’s hearty voice of greeting. “Ha, stout Will of Whitburn, well met! What, from the north?” The Earl stood talking with a tall brawny man, lean and strong, brown and weather-beaten, in a frayed suit of buff leather stained to all sorts of colours, in which rust predominated, and a face all brown and red except for the grizzled eyebrows, hair, and stubbly beard. She had not seen her father since she was five years old, and she would not have known him.