“I will tell you everything,” she moaned, “if you will only answer me. Ravenutzi was to make friends with the Ward, and seduce the secret from her. We were to lift the King’s Desire as soon as known, and nothing was to be said or hinted until the hostage was over. Then if they discovered the loss, who could be blamed for it? He was to stay the full time of the hostage, for if he came away violently, they would suspect, and go and look to see if their Treasure had been moved. I knew, or thought I knew, that if he got anything from the Ward she would have to love him. I thought he could manage it. He is very wise in women. Even you——” I checked her there; it was evident the Far-Folk were acquainted with everything that went on at Deep Fern, but I was not going to discuss my part of it with Ravenutzi’s wife. “You had never heard, then,” I broke in upon her, “that the Outliers chose their most beautiful young woman to be the Ward?” “Oh, I had heard.” She put up her hands to her face in some quick, indefinable shame. I suppose Ravenutzi had contrived to keep her convinced of the supremacy of her own loveliness. “When the Treasure was safe in our hands,” she said, “then we heard that the House-Folk had persuaded them to show the King’s Desire and it was certain that the lifting of the Treasure would be discovered. We did not think it would be so soon, but we sent to bring Ravenutzi away. We were sure he would be killed when the Treasure party returned. While the Far-Folk waited, word came that Ravenutzi had gone to make the Ward safe in some secret place and would join us shortly. That was all. No word to me——” Anger swallowed up her speech. I tried to soothe her. “It was the least he could do if she had told him. The Outliers would have killed her had they found her out.” “What matter to him if they had? We have killed Outliers before now when it was a question of the King’s Desire. Why should he be so careful of her, unless—unless he loves her?” In the anguish of that conviction she struck with her wounded palm against the tree, and sinking her head upon the arm that Ravenutzi had rested on, with what bliss it gave her the keener anguish to remember, set her teeth in the bared, tender flesh. I let her be, writhing like a wounded snake, for a time. Then, as the best cure, I began to tell her with particularity all I could recall of the flight of the smith and the Ward from Deep Fern. She questioned as she listened; would have me be precise. She had never been any nearer to Deep Fern than the place where I had found her the second day of the Meet. Could she reach it easiest from here by way of Leaping Water or otherwise? Just how far was the Laurel Bank from the long meadow, and how could one get at it? I could see the purpose grow in her to strike that trail and follow it to whatever end. She listened and hardened.