If I were a kiln, All fire and flame, I'd mantle and girdle thee Round with the same. But as I am nothing Save love-mazed Bill, Pray take of me, make of me, Just what you will. He had reached her. He held out his arms to engirdle her as he had threatened, and the flame leaped and danced in his eyes and glowed in his lips and cheek. She drew back proudly. "You have had my message?" "I take no messages--certainly none sent through parsons. The dove is the carrier between lovers, and not the croaking raven." "Perhaps it is as well," said Urith, coldly. She had nerved herself to play her part, but her heart was bounding and beating against her sides like the Tavy in one of its granite pools beneath a cataract. "I sent by Master Luke Cleverdon to let you know that we must see each other no more." "I will take no such message. I will--I must see you. I cannot live without." "My mother's wishes must be followed. I have promised to see and speak to you no more." "You promised! To whom? To her?" Urith was silent. "I will know who twisted this promise out of you. Was it Luke? If so his cassock and our cousinship shall not save him." "It was not Luke." "It was your mother?" "I did not actually promise anything to my mother. But--I must not shrink from telling you--I have made the promise to myself, we can be nothing to each other." "Unsay the promise at once--do you hear? At once." "I cannot do that. I made it because I considered it right. Your father is against our--acquaintance----" She hesitated. "Go on--he is against our being lovers, and more against our marrying. But what of that? He always gives way in the end, and now the only means of bringing him to his senses is for us to go before the altar." "My mother, with her last breath, warned me from you." "I know perfectly well for what reason. My mother and your father were to each other what are now you and I; then, by some chance, all went wrong, and each got wed to the wrong person. Neither was happy after that, and my father on one side and your mother on the other, could not forget this, so they have carried on the grudge to the next generation, and would make us do the wrong that they did, and give you to--the Lord knows who?--perhaps Fox Crymes; and me, certainly, to Julian. I have seen what comes of wedding where the heart is elsewhere. I will not commit the folly my father was guilty of. Julian Crymes shall take another, she shall never have me. And you, I reckon, have no fancy for another save me; and if your mother had made any scheme for you, she has taken it with her to the grave, and you are not tied to make yourself unhappy thereon." As he spoke, Urith retreated through the gateway into the court, and Anthony, vehement in his purpose, followed her.