He spoke, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, a man ill at ease under his own eyes, even though self-consciousness was not part of his normal nature. Denise’s heart had dropped to a steadier rhythm. The quicker wit of the woman has always the advantage of the man. “Earl Simon gave me some days, to keep vigils, wash, and be cleansed. I would have my arms blessed also, they will serve in a good cause.” He drew out his sword, set it point downwards in the grass, and looked at it, and not at Denise. She had her two hands over her bosom, and seemed to draw several breaths before she could speak. “There is the Abbot Reginald.” “Should I ride forty miles to be blessed by Reginald of Brecon? Here are my sword and shield. Bless them, or they shall go unblessed.” She looked at him, recoiling upon the consciousness of all that had happened to her since the days at Goldspur. “I?” “You can bless them, Denise. Who better?” The fog in the air between them thinned and vanished. But neither Aymery nor Denise noticed its passing. Life, and the infinite earnestness thereof had both their hearts in thrall. “Is it so great a thing to ask, Denise?” He was looking at her steadily now, the self-consciousness had slipped from him. “Lord, if my blessing were but worthy.” “Need you ask that!” “It is I who ask it of my own heart,” she answered. He flung out his arms suddenly, and his face blazed up at her. “For England, for the land, not for me alone, Denise. Mother of God—I will have no other. Am I not wise as to my own desire?” His ardour caught her spirit and sent it soaring above the earth as a wind blows a half-dead beacon into flame. The miserable self-fear, the consciousness of coming shame fell away from her like a ragged garment. She was the Denise of the woods again, with miraculous eyes and hands. “Give them to me.” She stretched out her arms, took his shield, held it to her bosom, and spoke words over it that Aymery could not hear. Yet how much love and how much supplication there were in those words of hers, the heart of a woman alone could tell. She took his sword also, kissed the cross thereof, and held it on high. “Break not, fail not. Keep troth, rust never.” She gave him the sword again, and Aymery kissed it, and knelt awhile with bowed head, as though in prayer. Then he rose up out of the grass, holding the cross of the sword before his eyes. “I would keep my vigil here,” he said. “Yonder where there is a thicket of young oaks. Before dawn, I shall be gone.” Denise’s face was still transfigured. The realisation of her earthliness had not returned as yet. “God guard you in the wars,” she said to him. Aymery lifted his head, and for a moment they looked into each other’s eyes. Then he turned from her as though his own heart bade him go. And it seemed to each that they had snatched a moment of joy from that half-closed hand of life that holds more pain than gladness.