From Fulviac’s parlour the cavern narrowed to a throat-like gallery that had been expanded by human craft into a third and smaller room. This last rock chamber was wholly more healthy and habitable than the others. Its walls stood squarely from floor to rocky roof, and it was blessed with a wide casement, that stared northwards over a vista of obeisant trees. A postern gave entry to the room from a narrow platform, and from this ledge a stairway cut in the flank of the cliff dwindled into the murk of the forest below. A more romantic atmosphere had swept into the bleak galleries of the place that winter. Plundered stores were ransacked, bales of merchandise ungirded, caskets and chests pilfered as for the endowing of the chamber of a queen. The northern room in the cliff blossomed into the rich opulence of a lady’s bower. Its stone walls were panelled with old oak carvings taken from some ancient manor. There were tapestries of green, gold, and purple; an antique bed with a tester of silver silk, its flanks blazoned with coloured escutcheons. Painted glass, azure, red, and gold, jewelled the casement, showing also Sebastian bound to his martyr’s tree. A Jew merchant plundered on the road had surrendered a set of brazen ewers, a lute inlaid with pearl, a carpet woven on the looms of the purple East. There were mirrors of steel about the walls. A carved prayer-desk, an embroidery frame, a crucifix wrought in ivory: Fulviac had consecrated all these to Yeoland, dead Rual’s daughter. A white lily amid a horde of thistles! The girl’s life had drawn under the black shadow of the cliff, and into the clanging torrent of these rough men of the sword. It was a wild age and a wild region. Fulviac’s rogues were like wolves in a forest lair, keen, bloody, and relentless. There was a rude strain of violence running through the strenuous mood of the place, like the song of Norse rovers, piercing the roar of the sea. Mystery enveloped the girl, war, and the sound of the sword. She fumbled at the riddle of Fate with the trembling fingers of one who unbars a prison gate in the hush of night. It was all strange and fantastic beyond the riot of a dream. "Madame," Fulviac had said to her when he had hung a key at her girdle, "I have bidden you trust me; remember that I trust you in turn. Take this room as your sanctuary. Lock me out when you will. I prepare, among other things, to perfect your vengeance." Yeoland suffered him and her necessity. She was shrewdly wise in the conviction that it would be useless to rebel against the man. Though over-masterful and secretive, his purpose appeared benignant in the opulence of its favour. Moreover, the forest was as a vast web holding her within the maze of the unknown. "I have no alternative," she said to him, "I am in your power. And yet, I believe you are no villain." "Your charity pleases me. I am a man with a strong purpose." "For good?" "Do I not need you?"