The trampling of his horse’s hoofs through the dead beech leaves came as no surprise to the woman who sat with the orfrays work of gold in her lap. She had watched her own mind, till, like a crystal, it had been full of the man’s coming. Often in her life Denise had been able to foresee the faces of those dear to her, and to feel friends near while they were still far distant. She had the gift of inward vision, though the power became lost to her later when she had suffered many humiliations. Aymery rode out into the sunlight of the glade, and Denise could see that he was armed. A surcoat of apple green covered the ringed hauberk, though the hood of mail was turned back between his shoulders. Aymery rode his big black destrier that day, and not the rough nag he used for hawking and cantering over his lands. He looped the bridle over the post at the gate, and came up the path with the air of a man who has more in his heart than his lips might utter. Denise let her work lie idle in her lap. She had had no fear of Aymery from the first, his face had become so familiar that it seemed part of the life round her, like the trees, or the hills, or the distant sea. Yet from the instant that he opened the wattle gate that morning, a sense of strangeness took hold of both of them. Each felt the change and wondered at it, so simple in its significance, and yet so strange. The shadow of a cloud lay over them for the first time. The more intimate hour had come when the man looked into the woman’s eyes and thought that thought which opens the eyes of the soul—“if any harm should befall her! If that dear head should suffer shame!” “We have buried the boy,” he said. “That will be the beginning of a long tale.” There was something satisfying about Aymery, a man who carried his head high, and looked fearlessly at the horizon. He had a quick yet quiet way with him had Aymery of Goldspur. Shirkers and cowards were afraid of those grey eyes of his, for they were not the eyes of a man to be trifled with or fooled. He spoke to Denise, resting his hands on his sword, and looking at the golden orfrays work in her lap. She was leaning against the door-post, her face in the shadow, thought and feeling as intimately one as the rose and the scent of the rose. “The woods are no longer safe. Peter of Savoy’s riders will be with us again. Waleran will see to that.” Denise’s brown eyes had a tremor of light in them. “Have you proved me a coward?” “We are cowards, Denise, where others are concerned. What do the days promise us? Waleran could not hold his house against those hired swarthies, nor can I mine; I am not fool enough to doubt it. A few arrows bearded with burning tow, the thatch alight, and the smoke and the flames would make us run like rats. It will be war in the woods where our bows can serve us, and where their men-at-arms cannot ride our peasants down.” Denise did not answer him for a moment. Her hands were turning over the embroidery in her lap.