Seating herself on the stone balustrade of the terrace she raised her hand, beckoned him to her. He came, stood before her, his eyes alight like a child’s who has been called by a close friend. “I am weary,” she said softly. “Truly, Madam!” quoth Peregrine very astonished. Here was no day for weariness. Sun-kissed, splendid in light and colour, the earth breathed vitality and joy. “Of my own company,” said Isabel, smiling at his look. “Madam,” stammered Peregrine, “I will fetch your women to you.” She laughed outright very musically. “That is like to a man,” she said. “An’ they were here I were none the less weary.” She fetched a little sigh. “Madam,” said Peregrine troubled. She looked across the moorland, sadness in her eyes. “Aye,” she said on a faint note of bitterness, “soul-weary.” “Madam,” said Peregrine for the third time, any word but the one hard to find. “Methinks,” she said very low, “that the loneliness of a woman seemingly surrounded by many friends is a very bitter loneliness. She looks for understanding and finds it not. Those she has counted as truest to her may ofttimes play her false, revile her, and leave her. Yet to revile in turn were ill done. She must smile when her heart is sore; laugh when her spirit is bruised and bleeding, lest she bring sadness into other lives.” She stopped. “Madam,” said Peregrine very earnestly, anger towards Brigid in his soul, “there is at least one heart would suffer death gladly for your sake.” “Ah,” she smiled sadly, “at times I have dreamed so. Yet where can I put trust? They offer me homage with their lips yet none with their hearts. Outwardly they speak me fair, inwardly they see me shallow. Do you think me shallow, Peregrine?” Here was a note of pleading as from a child. “Never,” said Peregrine hotly. She looked at him very strangely. “An’ you speak so with your heart in your voice it tempts me to believe you. You are Jester, Peregrine; yet methinks the fool’s motley but hides the heart of a loyal man. Is it so, Peregrine?” She lingered on the name. “Madam,” said Peregrine, the heart in question beating very hotly, “it beats in your service alone.” “You, too, are lonely?” “Madam, it was so at one time.” “And now?” “Since you have shown me favour, since you have deigned to see the man beneath the motley, my heart has been too full for loneliness.” “I think,” she said softly, musing, “we understand each other very well. It is strange, is it not, it should be so? I, Isabel de Belisle, and you a Jester, the meanest of my household, so men would say, and we hold a bond of understanding between us. Let us not heed what men would say. I have told you they see me very shallow. ’Tis sweet to me to think you believe it not. Shall we keep our understanding a secret between us,” she held out her hand.