A gloom seemed to have fallen on the Forest, and even the young foliage looked darker, heavier, less bright with the freshness of spring. The open woods were full of a listening sadness, a mysterious expectancy; for Death was out, Death and the Lord of Troy. Yet Mellis was touched by no such melancholy, no sinister forebodings; her man’s life was in her hands, her eyes were keen and watchful; danger gave a sparkle to her beauty; the day’s need steadied her heart. Martin Valliant watched her, and marveled. He forgot his wounds in looking at her forest-shaded face with its clean, clear comeliness, its alert, proud self-trust. There was nothing more wonderful than her eyes and the way they filled with light when meeting his. Their color seemed so elusive, changing from blue to black, and sometimes they were all a-glimmer like water touched by the sun. He looked at her lips, her white throat, her hair, the hands that held the reins, and had to tell himself that she was his. Every part of her seemed a piece of enchantment. She was so fair in his eyes that the thought of touching her seemed sacrilege. He found her smiling at him shyly. “Have we lost our tongues, dear man?” “So much has happened, and you——” “And I?” “Sometimes I think that you do not belong to this world, that you will vanish away.” She looked at him intently, curiously, for it seemed to her that his mood foreshadowed some solemn and subtle fancy that was working in his heart. He desired her, and yet did not desire her. The glamour of a mystical self-renunciation was not dead in Martin Valliant. “I am flesh and blood, God be thanked for it.” He half closed his eyes. “I see more than that.” She colored. “See the woman in me. For it is the man in you that has made me dream dreams.” They rode in silence for a while, but both were conscious of a listening tenderness, a mysterious and unsolved unrest. “Martin?” He glanced at her gravely. “Life and Death march on either side of us. We have to take thought for to-morrow and to-morrow’s morrow. It will not be easy.” She saw his eyes grow dark and deep. “Nor is life easy, child. I hold your soul in pledge, and this place is full of our enemies. And what am I but a broken man, an outcast?” “You are my love,” she said simply. He did not speak for a moment, and there were lines on his forehead. “Is God satisfied? Does He look on us as two children? I could show Him my heart—without fear—and yet——” “Well?” “I could die and not be afraid. But life is yours, and the beauty and the sweetness thereof, and where is the chalice for such wine? Are my hands fit to carry it?” “I ask for no other hands. Let God judge.”