The Princess of Roche-de-Frêne likewise sat without speaking. A colour was in her cheek and her eyes had strange depths. There was softness in them, but also force and will. She looked a being with courage to name her ends to herself and power to reach them. The dusk was coming, the small winged creatures that harboured in the castle garden were at their vesper chirping. The page Pierol and the dark-eyed girl whispered among the myrtles. The princess rose. “I am not so tired nor so melancholy now! I thank you for your singing, Sir Garin.” “I would, my princess,” answered Garin, “that, like the singers of old, I might build walls where they are broken! I would that, with armèd hand, I might bring you victory!” “One paladin alone no longer does that,” said Audiart. “If we win, we all have part—you and Sir Aimar and Lord Stephen, for whom I grieve, and all the valiant chivalry and those who fight afoot. And Thibaut Canteleu and every brave townsman. And the women who are so brave, ready and constant. And the children who hush their crying. All have part—all! Account must be taken, too, of my father’s jester, who, the other day, penned a cartel to Montmaure. He tied it to an arrow and shot it from the point of highest danger. And it was a scullion who threw down the ladder from the northern wall. All share. The value is in each!” “And you, my Lady Audiart, have you no part?” “I take account of myself as well. Yes, I, too, have part.” She turned her face toward the myrtles. “Come, Pierol—Maeut!” then spoke again to Garin of the Golden Island. “It seems to me sad that the Fair Goal, whoever she be, wherever she bides, should know naught of you! Did you perish to-morrow in Roche-de-Frêne, her tears would not flow. If she were laughing, her laughter would not break. No sense of loss where is no sense of possession! This siege never threats her happiness—so little do you know of each other!” Her voice had a faint note of scorn, with something else that could not be read. “That is true,” said Garin, and was once more conscious of that appeal beyond the horizon, under seas. He felt that there had been some birth, and that it was a thing not unsweet or passionless. It seemed other than aught that had come before into his life. And yet, immediately, he saw again and loved again the inaccessible, veiled figure, the traveller from far away,—it had fixed itself in his mind that she was a traveller from far away,—the lady who had been the guest of Our Lady in Egypt! He loved, he thought, more strongly, if that might be, than before. And again came the note of pain and bewilderment. “It is true, my princess! And still I think that in some hidden way—hidden to her and to me—she knows and answers!” He took the lute from the grass and drew from it a deep and thrilling strain. “So,” he said, “is the thought of her among my heart-strings.”