Nothing is more chafing to the patience than to lie abed crippled, knowing the while that coveted hours are slipping through one's fingers like grains of gold. To Igraine, her maimed ankle was a very thorn in the flesh. Her thoughts were tugging to be at Sarum, and she was in continual fear lest Radamanth or Gorlois should track her to her temporary refuge, and attempt to mar her freedom. She was not a woman who could take hindrance with perfect philosophy, comforting herself with the reflection that care never yet salved unrest. She chafed at delay, and even blamed Eudol with great unreason because he had obliged her with a horse not proof against stumbling. The knowledge that Gorlois rode in search of her did not tend to the easing of her mind. She began to understand Gorlois to the full. He had betrayed so much of himself in Radamanth's garden that her dread grew nearly as great as her disrelish. Eudol had made her comfortable enough in his manor, she had no need to find fault with his hospitality. She had her own room, a little girl to wait and sing to her, fruit and food of the best. She spent the greater part of each day in the garden, her bed being set under the vine leaves; two of Eudol's slaves would carry her down in the morning and bear her back again at night, so that she should not be too venturesome in trying her ankle. The old merchant kept his folk close on the farm and suffered none to go to Winchester or Salisbury, for fear lest the knowledge of Igraine's whereabouts should leak into interested channels. The more the girl saw of Eudol the less she relished him in her heart. The lean look of him, his little green eyes, his thin goat-like beard, reminded her much of the picture of some old Satyr she had seen in the frescoes on the walls of the triclinium at Winchester. He grew more fatherly and kind to her, would smile like some old saint as he sat and read moralities to her from the lives of some of the Fathers. He was very fond of holding her hand and stroking it while he purred sentiment, and made her colour to hear his nonsense. He was quite wickedly delighted when he had fetched a blush to her face. He would sit and chuckle and hug himself, while his little eyes glistened and his beard shook. Igraine, though her cheeks often tingled, did her best to suffer him, knowing well enough that she was greatly dependent for her peace of mind upon his good-will. She would laugh, turn his senile flatteries into jest, and assume his humour as the most vapoury and fanciful piece of fun possible. She often hinted that Eudol must be neglecting his farm for her sake, though her suggestions were absolutely to no purpose, seeing that Eudol had forgotten all about such mundane matters as harvesting or the pressing of cider.