Marpasse made her way through the wood, and came at last to the place where the beech boles stood like great pillars about an open court. There was a blur of colour against the green, the pink blush of an early rose that had run in riot over the wattle fence, and flowered like a rose tree in a garden of Shiraz. The dark brown thatch of the cell showed ragged holes where birds had burrowed in and built their nests. The grass stood knee deep in the glade, grass that seemed asleep in the warm sunlight, dreamed over by moon-faced daisies bewitched by the song of the bees. Marpasse had taken cover behind the trunk of a beech tree. She had seen a track in the long grass where someone had passed but a short while ago. And Marpasse’s eyes beamed in her brown face. Her prophecy had also been fulfilled, for there, under the shade of the rose tree she saw Denise amid the grass, her knees drawn up, and her chin resting in the palms of her two hands. Marpasse watched her awhile, indulging her own philosophy much like a nurse commenting upon a child. “Heart of mine, but somebody should be here in my place. What a sad, white face, to be sure, and what eyes—as though the whole world were on its death bed! We will change all that, my dear. You shall be the colour of the rose bush before the day is out.” She slipped from behind the tree, and crossed the grass, singing a song that she had often sung upon the road. And she saw Denise’s face start up into the sunlight out of its mood of mists and sadness. A tendril of the rose tree caught Denise’s hair as Marpasse pushed open the rotting gate. Marpasse laughed, happy, yet with a lovable shyness in her eyes. “See what it is to be desired,” said she, “even the rose tree must catch at that hair of yours. Heart of mine—how you tremble!” She took Denise and held her, kissing her mouth. “So you ran away—for the last time, hey—when St. George had finished slaying the dragon! That was a mad thing to do, my dear. You should have stopped to succour him, should he have been wounded.” Denise’s brown eyes searched Marpasse’s face, looking beyond the other’s playfulness. “Gaillard?” she asked. “Dead, heart of mine; the best thing that ever he did was to die. Those brown eyes of yours need not look so frightened, St. George has been put to bed to sleep till he is hungry.” Marpasse sat down under the rose tree, and drew Denise into her lap. “Try to smile a little, my dear,” she said, “for summer is coming in, and the cuckoo is singing.” Denise did not rest long in Marpasse’s lap, nor would she touch any of the bread that Marpasse had brought with her. She drew aside in the grass, turned her face away, and sat staring into the shadowy spaces under the trees. Marpasse watched her, and let the mood take its course. She could be patient with Denise as yet, knowing that suffering and sorrow leave the heart sore and easily hurt. Denise spoke at last in a low voice, still keeping her face hidden from Marpasse.