“I did not know——” he began. “Marpasse told me——” She bit her lips, and was silent. “Denise—it was no trick of mine, God knows that!” She leant against the door, hiding her face. “I lost you—after Gaillard and I had ended it. They brought me here, and told me that they had found you, but that they would not bring you to me—because of my wounds. That—is everything. Call Marpasse. She shall open the door and let you go.” Denise glanced at him, half furtively, and that one glance seemed to make the metal of her purpose melt and flow into a stream of living fire. She turned with an inarticulate cry, and threw back her hood, letting the sunlight fall upon her face. “Lord, how can I, I who remember all the past!” “Denise!” He was up, leaning towards her, stretching out his hands. “God! What is all that—to me! Can you not understand?” She swayed, closing her eyes, her hands feeling the air as though she were blind. “My heart—oh—my heart!” “Denise!” “May the sin of it be forgiven.” She was on her knees beside the bed, her arms flung out over it, her face hidden in the coverlet. “Lord—save me——!” Aymery’s arms went round her, and she clung to him with sudden passion, as though life were there, and love, and hope. “Hold me—keep me—let me not go! Oh, but the shame of it—the selfishness! Closer, closer to you! I am afraid—I am afraid!” She was trembling like one lifted from the torture of the rack. Her hands clung to him, the hands of a frightened child, and of an impassioned woman. Aymery turned her in his arms, so that her hair fell down across the bed, and her face was under his. “Rest here, my heart. Who—on God’s earth—shall take you from me?” Their eyes met and held in one long look. “Lord, lord—ah—do not pity me,” she said, “not in the way that hurts a woman’s heart.” Aymery kissed her upon the mouth. “God forgive me,” he said, “if ever I have made you think that.” Meanwhile Marpasse had returned, leaving Grimbald in the wood-shed, and creeping softly across the room she stood listening at the closed door. Such a true friend was Marpasse that the two within might have forgiven her her eaves-dropping. It was no inquisitive spirit that waited there silent, and open-mouthed, listening with wet eyes to words that were sacred. Marpasse soon knew the truth, and she crept away on tip-toe. But Marpasse was no sooner out of the house than a delirious mood seized her, and she ran like a girl, her wet eyes ablaze, her face exultant. There was no need for Grimbald to ask her how things sped. “Love is lord of all,” she sang; “and I have the weight of a lie off my shoulders! Good saints, good saints—I wish I could give you a lapful of silver!” She laughed up to Grimbald in her delight, caught him by the shoulders, and kissed him full upon the mouth. “_Mea culpa_, Father; I am a mad fool, but my heart was in the venture, and when I am glad—like a dog—I must show it.”