“Never trust a saint, Gaillard,” she said. “I have not forgotten that the man in the tower might be glad of this piece of hair. It will give him something to think about while he sits and nibbles straws. Take it up and push it under his door, and tell him it comes from his lady.” The joke caught Gaillard’s fancy. He climbed the tower, and pushed the trophy under Aymery’s door with the point of his poniard. “A woman gave it me, my man,” he said. “But since I have something better for a keepsake, you can have the hair.” He went away, laughing, a thorough Gascon in his gross self-satisfaction. And Aymery picked up what Gaillard had left him. He knew it for Denise’s hair, for there was none like it in all those parts. CHAPTER XIII The may was budding into bloom, and Dom Silvius came riding Goldspur way again, thinking of the many things that may occupy the mind of a man who keeps both eyes fixed upon the affairs of the “house.” Silvius’s soul felt very comfortable within him that morning. The bloom was setting well upon the orchard trees, such a sea of foam that the autumn should be red with fruit. Word had come from the shepherds in the pasture lands that hardly a lamb had been lost that spring. There was little sickness anywhere, but few poor to need alms, and no shortage of dues from the tenants. Dom Silvius made it his business to know of all these things, even though they might not concern his authority. He was like a child and a miser in his joy and carefulness in working for the wealth and honour of his Abbey. So Dom Silvius came to the beech wood above Goldspur, and followed the main ride, talking to himself like a happy starling, for he rode alone that morning. And he would lean forward and fondle his nag’s ears, for the beast was provided by one of the tenants, and Dom Silvius loved the horse because he had not to feed him. “A little more roundly, my good Dobbin,” he prattled. “But beware of worldliness, for the sake of my dignity; we must not bump like a butcher to market. What will Sancta Denise say to us this morning? The child should not set herself alone here like a white dove for any hawk to swoop at. _Mea culpa_, but the girl has hair like dead beech leaves touched by the sun, saving, Dobbin, that the leaves have no glitter of gold. And what eyes! God bless us, but we may hope for miracles. And if the folk flock to be healed, they shall lodge in the Abbey, and surely their gratitude will make us rich.” The almoner sobered himself however when he turned aside by the white stone that marked the path leading to the hermitage. The woodlands might have eyes and ears, and it would not be seemly for a man of Silvius’s age and estate to be overheard babbling like a lover who must talk even though it be only to his horse. So he rode very demurely into Denise’s glade, with his chin on his chest, and his lips moving as though he said a prayer for every furlong.