Margaret Ferrers came down slowly into the hall. She was clad all in grey, her head wrapped in a starched white wimple, a cold figure with cold eyes. Her face was as passionless as the face of one lying dead in a shroud, nostrils and lips thin and compressed, the skin bloodless and opaque. This woman had the air of having left her soul behind her somewhere in the past, but this morning her eyes were alert and mistrustful, her face as sharp and pinched as on a bitter winter morning. Isoult was still singing, and with such abandonment that the words could be heard in the hall: “I put me on a new shift the morning I was wed. My gown it was of cloth of gold, my hose of Flemish red.” Margaret Ferrers asked no questions. She stood, waiting, like the ghost in the tale forbidden by pride to speak until spoken to. Fulk sprang up, the impetuous youth in him missing the look in his mother’s eyes. “Listen to the caged bird singing. I caught it last night under the Witch Cross yews.” “A woman?” “Stalking a hart by moonlight, with a bow in her hand. I locked her in the store-room for the night.” Margaret Ferrers still considered him with her mistrustful eyes. “A woman!” “Who calls herself Isoult of the Rose. Jade or lady, she goes before the verderers at the next swainmote. We shall have to lodge her here.” His mother was wondering whether she should believe him. They came to all men, these adventures, and yet he carried it off like a boy who had brought home a snared rabbit. “Who is she? Whence does she come?” “I know no more than Father Adam. Some gay dame, perhaps, tired of her bower, and come adventuring. She tried to fool me.” Margaret Ferrers listened to the singing voice. “Some light wench,” she thought; but to her son she said, “Give me the key, Fulk. I may find out more than a man could.” He gave her the key without demur, and leaving her to visit Isoult of the Rose, he passed out into the courtyard and washed in the great stone trough under the pump. Dame Margaret approached the matter with all the uncharitableness of a woman who once in her life had stood in bitter need of the world’s charity. Her face seemed to grow thinner and sharper from the moment that she set eyes upon Isoult. The claws of a woman’s jealous instinct tore all fripperies aside, and laid bare the sinful body that good women imagine they see under richly coloured clothes. Isoult was no less instantly upon her guard. She looked slantwise at Dame Margaret, holding her head high, and seeing in the grey and blighting figure mistrust, arrogance, and scorn. “The day’s blessing on you, madame.”