“It may tell you more than I can.” John the forester returned with a jug of cider, and bread and honey on a hollywood platter. Fulk bade him set the food and drink before Isoult. The fellow, none too sober, stumbled against the hearth curb, and spilt half the cider. Fulk struck him across the shoulders with half of the broken bow. “Sot! Vanish—get out of my sight!” When the man had gone he turned to Isoult, frowning: “A man who cannot rule his body is no better than a beast. Eat.” She took bread, and spread the honey with her girdle knife, nothing but the point of her chin showing under the shadow of her hood. “Lording,” she said, “you are very masterful. Do you rule your men as you rule your dogs?” “It serves. A cur is a villein; a hound a gentleman.” She took the jug and drank. “So! We are all dogs, if not of the same litter. And some of us are hated. What do the people sing now: “When Adam delved and Eve span, Where was then the gentleman?” He looked down at her, as from a height. “A fool’s ditty. Will you ask me to prove that a hart royal is no better than a rooting hog? A scullion’s forbears were scullions: that’s the sense of’t.” She held out the loaf to him. “Will you not eat?” “I eat but twice a day.” “Proud, even over a platter. Oh, my good bachelor, you will not be long-lived!” When she had eaten, Fulk took a rushlight, lit it at the torch, and stood waiting. Isoult rose and followed him to the door of the store-room that opened out of a passage leading from the hall. He gave her the rushlight, and their fingers touched. “Cold hand, Messire Fulk, hot heart.” He said nothing, but waited for her to enter, and then locked the door after her and took the key. Fulk slept in the hall that night on a deer-skin spread upon a bed of bracken, and so little had the feminine temper of the adventure stirred him that he slept till five of the clock, when he was wakened by John the forester opening the shutters. “A touch of frost, master, but a fine morning. Peter of the Purlieus has been watching the Pippinford rides. He was to meet me at Stonegate two hours after sunrise.” Fulk was still sleepy. “Yes, get along. Take a couple of hounds and your quarterstaff, and blow three notes if you see aught that is strange.” The forester started out, and Fulk dozed off again till he woke to the sound of someone singing. For the moment he had almost forgotten the woman in yonder, and to judge by her matins she was in a mood with the birds. He sat up just as the solar door opened, and a grey figure appeared at the top of the wooden stairway leading down into the hall. The figure had paused, as though listening, its eyes fixed upon Fulk seated on the deer-skin where the morning sunlight poured in upon the floor. “Fulk!” “Mother!”