The Lady Mevrian, being escaped to her own chamber in the south tower, sat by an eastern window that looked across the gardens and the lake, past the sea-lochs of Stropardon and the dark hills of Eastmark, to the stately ranges afar which overhang in mid-air Mosedale and Murkdale and Swartriverdale and the inland sea of Throwater. The last lights of day still lingered on their loftier summits: on Ironbeak, on the gaunt wall of Skarta, and on the distant twin towers of Dina seen beyond the lower Mosedale range in the depression of Neverdale Hause. Behind them rolled up the ascent of heaven the wheels of quiet Night: holy Night, mother of the Gods, mother of sleep, tender nurse of all little birds and beasts that dwell in the field and all tired hearts and weary: mother besides of strange children, affrights, and rapes, and midnight murders bold. Mevrian sat there till all the earth was blurred in darkness and the sky a-throb with starlight, for it was yet an hour until the rising of the moon. And she prayed to Lady Artemis, calling her by her secret names and saying, “Goddess and Maiden chaste and holy; triune Goddess, Which in heaven art, and on the earth Huntress divine, and also hast in the veiled sunless places below earth Thy dwelling, viewing the large stations of the dead: save me and keep me that am Thy maiden still.” She turned the ring upon her finger and scanned in the gathering gloom the bezel thereof, which was of that chrysoprase that is hid in light and seen in darkness, being as a flame by night but in the day-time yellow or wan. And behold, it palpitated with splendour from withinward, and was as if a thousand golden sparks danced and swirled within the stone. While she pondered what interpretation lay likeliest on this sudden flowering of unaccustomed splendour within the chrysoprase, behold one of her women of the bed-chamber who brought lights, and said, standing before her, “Twain of those lords of Witchland would speak with your ladyship in private.” “Two?” said Mevrian. “There’s safety yet in numbers. Which be they?” “Highness, they be tall and slim of body. They be black-avised. They bear them discreet as dormice, and most commendably sober.” Mevrian asked, “Is it the Lord Gro? Hath he a great black beard, much curled and perfumed?” “Highness, I marked not that either weareth a beard,” said the woman, “nor their names I know not.” “Well,” said Mevrian, “admit them. And do thou and thy fellows attend me whiles I give them audience.” So it was done according to her bidding. And there entered in those two sons of Corund. They greeted her with respectful salutations, and Heming said, “Our errand, most worshipful lady, was for thine own ear only if it please thee.” Mevrian said to her women, “Make fast the doors, and attend me in the ante-chamber. And now, my lords,” said she, and waited for them to begin.