Simon was glad to see the girl again, but sorely against his will he found himself a sharer in her sorrow, and could almost have wished young Athens back again between them to conjure away the pathos of her look. He rose up to answer her, honestly sorry for her flagrant sorrow, painfully conscious that it was not for him to bring her consolation. "Gone," he said, simply. It was all he could find to say on the instant; it really seemed all there was to say. "Gone!" she echoed, and it seemed to Simon as if the woes of all unhappy lovers in the world seemed to flow mournful through her lips. He nodded his head and spoke soberly, gently, weighing his words: "In your absence there came a great lady riding by, the duchess she of Thebes, no less, with a large escort. She saw your young gentleman sprawling on his back in the moonlight, and, seeing him, seemed to know him and to show a fancy for his fair face. So when she had tickled him out of his swoon she persuaded him, as I take it, for her voice carried far and I could catch snatches of her speech in the stillness, that you were no more than the doll of a dream and that it was she, the duchess, who had tended him in his time of peril, she who had changed troth with him, she who had taken his ring which indeed lay on the grass for any chance-by to handle, she who had given him a ring in exchange, for indeed she did thrust a ring on his finger while he slumbered. I suppose in the end he gobbled her story, which seemed, on the face of it, plain and specious. Anyway, she gave him wine to drink which sent him to sleep like a baby, and so without more ado she bundled him off to Athens." Simon paused after this patter of narrative. To his surprise the girl had mastered her instant grief, and her countenance carried its former air of sweet serenity. The tears had dried from her eyes; the fear had faded from her cheeks; only she seemed to regard Simon now with cold, accusing mien. "Did you do nothing to stay her?" she asked, and there was that stroke of reproach in her voice which made Simon feel, he knew not exactly why, as if he had betrayed a friend. But he answered bluffly enough, putting a bold face on his conduct, for, after all, maugre her strength, she was only a slip of a she-wizard and he a bearded man little accountable to such jills. "I am a soldier of fortune," he blustered, "and it is not the way of my trade to take sides in a squabble unless I be paid for it. But if I had been fool enough to thrust my nose into another's quarrel, there was nothing of any purpose to do, for my high-mighty lady the duchess had fifty or so stout fellows with her, more than I could tackle. I was in a kind my lady's prisoner, and if I had not contrived to slip aside into the wood while she was plying him with the wine it is like she would have carried me, too, to Athens, and indeed it was not part of my plans to travel thither in such fashion."