She was seated sideways in the window, betwixt the light and the dark. The crystal lamps shining from within the room showed deeper darknesses in her hair than night’s darkness without. The curve of her white arms resting in her lap was like the young moon cradled above the sunset. A falling breeze out of the south came laden with the murmur of the sea, far away beyond fields and vineyards, restlessly surging even in that calm weather amid the sea-caves of Stropardon. It was as if the sea and the night enfolding Demonland gasped in indignation at such things as Corinius, holding himself already an undoubted possessor of his desires, devised for that night in Krothering. Those brethren stood abashed in the presence of such rare beauty. Heming with a deep breath spake and said, “Madam, what slender opinion soever thou hast held of us of Witchland, I pray thee be satisfied that I and my kinsman have sought to thee now with a clean heart to do thee service.” “Princes,” said she, “scarce might ye blame me did I misdoubt you. Yet, seeing that my life’s days have been not among ambidexters and coney-catchers but lovers of clean hands and open dealing, not even after that which I this night endured will mine heart believe that all civility is worn away in Witchland. Did I not freely receive Corinius’s self when I did open my gates to him, firmly believing him to be a king and not a ravening wolf?” Then said Heming, “Canst thou wear armour, madam? Thou art something of an height with my brother. To bring thee past the guard, if thou go armed, as I shall conduct thee, the wine they have drunken shall be thy minister. I have provided an horse. In the likeness of my young brother mayst thou ride forth to-night out of this castle, and win clean away. But in thine own shape thou mayst never pass from these thy lodgings, for he hath set a guard thereon; being resolved, come thereof what may, to visit thee here this night: in thine own chamber, madam.” The sounds of furious revelry floated up from the banquet chamber. Mevrian heard by snatches the voice of Corinius singing an unseemly song. As in the presence of some dark influence that threatened an ill she might not comprehend, yet felt her blood quail and her heart grow sick because of it, she looked on those brethren. She said at last, “Was this your plan?” Heming answered, “It was the Lord Gro did most ingenuously conceive it. But Corinius, as he hath ever held him in distrust, and most of all when he hath drunken overmuch, keepeth him most firmly at his elbow.” Cargo now did off his armour, and Mevrian calling in her women to take this and other gear fared straightway to an inner chamber to change her fashion.