The words seemed sudden as an echo. Igraine bent her head to hide the half-abashed, half-smiling look upon her face. It had been thus at Avangel. Nun and novice had worn like habits, and there had been nothing to distinguish them save the final solemn vow. The man's notions were plainly celibate, and, with a sudden twinkling inspiration, she fancied they should bide so. It would make matters smoother for them both, she thought. "My prayers are yours, daily, for this service," she said. The man bent his head to her. "I am thankful, madame," he answered, "that I should have been so good fortuned as to be able to befriend you. How came you by such evil hazard?" "I was of Avangel," she said. "You speak as of the past," quoth he, with a keen look. "Avangel was burnt and sacked but yesterday," she said. "Many of the nuns were martyred; some few escaped. I was made captive here, and bound to this tree by the heathen." Igraine could see the man's face darken even in the moonlight, as though pain and wrath held mute confederacy there. He crossed himself, and then stood with both hands on the pommel of his sword, stately and statuesque. "And the Lady Gratia?" he said. "Dead, I fear." A half-heard groan seemed to come from the man's helmet. He bent his head into the shadows and stood stiff and silent as though smitten into thought. Presently he seemed to remember himself, Igraine, and the occasion. "And yourself, madame?" he said, with a twinge of tenderness in his voice. The girl blushed, and nearly stammered. "I am unscathed," she hastened to say, "thanks to heaven. I am safe and whole as if I had spent the day in a convent cell. My name is Igraine, if you would know it. I fear I have told you heavy tidings." The man turned his face to the sky like one who looks into other worlds. "It is nothing," he said, gazing into the night; "nothing but what we must look for in these stark days. Our altars smoke, our blood is spilt, and yet we still pray. Yet may I be cursed, and cursed again, if I do not dye my sword for this." There was a sudden bleak fierceness in his voice that betrayed his fibre and the strong thoughts that were stirring in his heart that moment. His face looked almost fanatical in the cold gloom, gaunt, heavy-jawed, lion-like. Igraine watched this thunder-cloud of thought and passion in silence, thinking she would meet the man in the wrack of life rather as friend than as foe. The brief mood seemed to pass, or at least to lose expression. Again, there was that in the kindness of his face that made the girl feel beneath the eye of a brother. "You will ride with me?" he asked. Igraine hesitated a moment. "I was for Anderida," she said, "and it is only three leagues distant. Now that I am free I can go through the wold alone, for I am no child." "An insult to my manhood," said the stranger. "But the heathen are everywhere, and I should but cumber you." "Madame, you talk like a fool."