The priest and the girl on the horse eyed each other a moment in silence. Each was instinctively examining the other. The churchman, with an approving glint of the eye, was the first to break the woodland silence. "Peace be with you, madame." His tone hinted at a question, and the girl adopted therewith an ingenuous duplicity. "My man and I were of a hunting party," she said; "we went astray in the wood. You, Father, will guide us?" "Madame has not discovered to me her desire." "We wish for Gilderoy." Balthasar rose and pointed with his brush towards the ride by which they had come. He mapped the road for them with sundry jaunty flourishes, and much showing of his white teeth. Yeoland thanked him, but was still curious. "Ah, Father, whither have we wandered?" "Men call it Cambremont wood, madame." "And these buildings? A retreat, doubtless, for holy men." Balthasar corrected her with much unction. "The Lord Flavian of Avalon builds here," he said, "but not for monks. I, madame, am his architect, his pedagogue in painting." Yeoland pretended interest. She craned forward over her horse’s neck and looked at the priest’s panel. The act decided him. Since she was young and comely, Balthasar seized the chance of a chivalrous service. The girl had fine eyes, and a neck worthy of a Venus. "Madame has taste. She would see our work?" Madame appeared very ready to grant the favour. Balthasar put his brushes aside, held the girl’s stirrup, and, unconscious of the irony of the act, expatiated to Yeoland on the beauties of her own home. At the end of their pilgrimage, being not a little bewitched by such eyes and such a face, he begged of her the liberty of painting her there and then. ’Twas for the enriching of religious art, as he very properly put it. Dead Rual’s grave was not ten paces distant, and Jaspar was standing by it as in prayer. Thus, Yeoland sat to Fra Balthasar, oblivious of him indeed as his fingers brought her fair face into being, her shapely throat and raven hair. His picture perfected, he blessed her with the unction of a bishop, and stood watching her as she vanished down the southern ride, graceful and immaculate as a young Dian. XV Hardly had an hour passed, and Fra Balthasar was still touching the study he had made of Yeoland’s face, when a company of spears flashed out by the northern ride into the clearing. At their head rode a knight in harness of burnished steel, a splendid figure flashing chivalry in the eyes of the sun. On his shield he bore "a castle, argent, with ports voided of the field, on a field vert," the arms of the house of Gambrevault. His surcoat was diapered azure and green with three gold suns blazoned thereon. His baldric, a splendid streak of scarlet silk, slashed his surcoat as with blood. His troop, men in half armour, rode under the Pavon Vert of the demesne of Avalon.