Having prayed for the success of this new marriage and for the soul of Gian Paolo, and having confessed to all the last month’s irregularities, Florian went eastward. He passed Amneran and a spur of the great forest, now that he went to ford the Duardenez. As he neared Acaire he thought, idly, and with small shrugs, of a boy’s adventuring to the sleeping princess in the midst of these woods, and of the beauty which he had not ever forgotten utterly: and his heart was troubled with that worshipful and hopeless longing which any thinking about this Melior would always evoke in Florian, because he knew that his “dream,” as people would call it, was a far more true and vital thing than Florian’s daily living. Then on a sudden he reined up his horse, and Florian waited there, looking down upon the dark woman who had come out of this not over-wholesome forest. Florian did not speak for some while, but he smiled, and he shook his head in a sort of humorous disapprobation. This woman was his half-sister, whom Florian’s father had begotten, with the co-operation of the bailiff of Ranec’s daughter, some while before middle age and the coming into extreme fashion of continence had made such escapades criticizable. Marie-Claire Cazaio was thus of an age with Florian, being his senior by only three months. In their shared youth these two had not been strangers, for the old Duke had handsomely recognized his responsibility for this daughter, and had kept Marie-Claire about his household until the girl had outraged propriety by bearing an illegitimate child. After this the Duke had no choice except to turn her out of doors. She had since then taken up with companions whose repute was not even dubious: and her manner of living was esteemed intemperate by the most broad-minded persons in Poictesme, where sorcery was treated with all reasonable indulgence. “My dear,” said Florian, at last, still shaking his head, “I must tell you, however little good it does, that there was another deputation of peasants and declamatory grocers at me, only last week, to have you seized and burned. You are too careless, Marie-Claire, about offending against the notions of your neighbors. You should persuade your unearthly lovers to curb their ardors until after dark. You should at least induce them not to pass over Amneran in such shapes as frighten your neighbors in the twilight, and so provoke their very natural desire to burn you at broad noon.” “These little peasants will not burn me yet,” she answered. “My term is not yet run out—” You saw that Marie-Claire was thinking of quite other matters. She said, “So, they tell me, you are to marry again?”