Simon unbound the duchess, for Bohemond, now that the fight was over, could do nothing but bite at his hands to keep himself from crying, and indeed she was a tragic sight with the blood dabbling her whiteness. Simon wrapped her decently and tenderly in a mantle, for, after all, she was a woman, and a dying woman, and he laid her gently on the grass. The simplest knowledge of wounds was sufficent to assure him that her hurt was mortal, and, indeed, in a few seconds she expired without having spoken a word. To the end of his days Simon, when he remembered that time, wondered what were the thoughts of the duchess as she peered through her hair at the battle. XXX RENUNCIATION This was what Simon had to tell to Argathona and to Rainouart when he came upon them side by side in the forest. This and the order he had taken thereafter. For he had found the horses of the robbers with the horse of the duchess tethered in a glen, and he had bound the body of the dead woman decorously upon her horse's back and intrusted the corpse to Bohemond's care, charging him to ride at a walking pace to Athens and tell the tale to Ximenes. With the aid of the other horses, Argathona and Rainouart and he could make their way quickly to Peloponnesus and safety before any pursuit could reach them if pursuit were attempted. When the maid and the man heard Simon's story they were silent for a while, troubled alike with sad thoughts and glad thoughts. To Rainouart the news meant that he was free to marry his true-love, but to his true-love it brought fiercely the knowledge of mortality, and her spirit shivered in its house, and suddenly she snatched at her lover's hand, and in the clasp caught back strength and comfort that had threatened for a moment to abandon her. And so in silence they turned and went their way with Simon after them till they came in sight of the hermit's hut, and they halted before the shrine with its glory of the silver image of the Redeemer pierced upon the tree. Then Argathona turned to her lover and begged him to let her approach the holy man alone, and Rainouart, who would not have said her nay in anything, granted her prayer. Then she bade him wait where he stood, and he and Simon knelt before the shrine and prayed, while Argathona quitted him, and coursed fleetly over the grass and came to the hermit's door and knocked at it for admittance. The anchorite was within, and he opened his door, and he welcomed the maiden as if he had been awaiting her, and he took her by the hand and drew her within the hut and saluted her with, "Peace be with you, daughter." Argathona surveyed the palace of the anchorite with its mean walls and its naked floor, and its wooden table laden with a great book and a vessel of water and a crucifix of ivory.