The princess sat with her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand. She sat very still, her eyes upon the winter glow behind the winter woods. “As you will, Garin of the Golden Island,” she said at last. Her voice had in it light and shadow. She sat still and Garin stood as still, by the fire. All around them was its light and the light in the sky that made a bright dusk. He spoke. “_The Convent of Our Lady in Egypt._ Martinmas, eight years ago, I was in Roche-de-Frêne. I heard Bishop Ugo preach and I knelt in the church before Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne. Then I went to the inn for my horse. There, passers-by asked me if I was for the feast-day jousts and revels in the castle lists. I said No, I could not stay. Then they said that there sat to judge the contest the Princess Alazais, and beside her, the Princess Audiart. I had no reason to think them mistaken. Were they right, or were they wrong? Were you there in Roche-de-Frêne?” “Martinmas, eight years ago?—No, I was not in Roche-de-Frêne, though I came back to the castle very soon. I was at Our Lady in Egypt.” “Ah God!” said Garin with strong emotion. “How beautiful are Thy circles that Thou drawest!” She looked at him with parted lips. “Now, I will ask a question! I wearied, that autumn, of nuns’ ways and waiting ladies’ ways and my own ways. One day I said, ‘I will go be a shepherdess and taste the true earth!’” A smile hovered. “Faith! the experiment was short!—Now, my question.—Being a shepherdess, I was like to taste shepherdess’s fare in this so knightly world. Then came by a true knight, though his dress and estate were those of a squire.—My question:—I asked him, that day, ‘Where is your home?’ He answered, that squire, and I thought that he told the truth,—‘I dwell by the sea, a long way from here.’—Sir Garin de Castel-Noir, that was squire to Raimbaut the Six-fingered, neither dwelling nor serving by the sea but among hills, and not far away but near at hand, tell me now and tell me truly—” “Jael the herd, I am punished! I thought to myself, ‘I am in danger from that false knight who will certainly seek me.’” “Ah, I see!” said the princess; and she laughed at him in scorn. “It is an ill thing,” said Garin, “to mistrust and to lie! I make no plea, my Lady Audiart, save that I do not always so.” “Certes, no! I believe you there.... Let it go by.... That shepherdess could not, after all, be to you for trustworthiness like your Fair Goal—” She ceased abruptly upon the name. The colour glowed in the west, the colour played and leaped in the faggot fire, the colour quivered in their own faces. Light that was not outer light brightened in their eyes. Their frames trembled, their tissues seemed to themselves and to each other to grow fine and luminous. There had been a shock, and all the world was different.