"Being foolish enough to overstay sunset near these woods in the reading of silly verses, he was set upon by footpads who thought to kill and strip him, but a girl who lives in these woods scared them away. The rascals took her for a witch, tumbling plump on them from the thicket, and gave leg-bail. It was the devil take the hindermost, I promise you; you would have laughed to see them scamper. The maid tended his wounds, that were little enough save for an ugly clip on the crown, and what should my young gentleman do but fall in love with his sweet nurse and she with him. I think they have plighted their troth, for he has proffered her a ring, and this daughter of the forest bids fair to end her days as Duchess of Athens." The red blood raged in the woman's face, staining its ivory. "That she shall never be," she said in her heart. "I love this youth, and will not yield him." For, indeed, she had loved him with what Esclaramonde called love, in those painted days in Paris, before in despite she had taken Nemours for her husband, the old Duke of Thebes, who had lately left her an eager widow. What she spoke aloud was: "A likely tale that Duke Baldwin's son should woo to mate a peasant." "She is no peasant, I promise you," Simon answered, doggedly. He did not choose to tell what the girl had told him, for he was very far from sure that he believed it himself, and he was very sure, indeed, that no one else would believe it. "She is no peasant, whatever she be. These ears heard him ask her in marriage, and here lies the ring he proffered her." Simon held out the rosary ring on his brown palm. The duchess's white hand dived at it as a peregrine dives on his prey, and caught it before he could guess or prevent her purpose. He had ever been used to dealing with damsels ready to snatch any trifles they might spy from their chance companions, and, being of a business-like humor in such matters, he made now as if to clutch the ring back again, just as if he were toying with a Corinthian doxy. But the duchess gave a sidelong glance at her escort, and in an instant a dozen swords were naked and aimed at Simon's breast, and Simon, being a sensible man, gave up the idea of further argument or expostulation. The duchess moved nearer to one of the torch-bearers, and in the orange light she looked at the ring covetously, much for its own rich beauty, for she loved all costly toys, and more because it seemed to mean a man's love for another woman, a man's love that should be, might be, hers. For the sanctity of the symbolism of the ring she had no thought at all.