"Perhaps you are a venturesome spirit." "I believe that I am often as careful as death." Igraine made her culminating suggestion. "Some high deed must have been in your heart," she said, "or probably you would not have risked so much." The man Pelleas did not even look at her. She felt the bridle-arm that half held her tighten unconsciously, as though he were steeling himself against her curiosity. "Madame," he said very gravely, "every man's business should be for his own heart, and I do not know that I have any need to share the right or wrong of mine with others. It is a grand thing to be able to keep one's own counsel. It is enough for you to know my name." Igraine none the less was not a bit abashed. "There is one thing I would hear," she said, "and that is how you came to know of the abbess Gratia." For the moment the man looked black, and his lips were stern-- "You may know if you wish," he said. "Well?" "Madame, the Lady Gratia was my mother." Igraine felt a flood of sudden shame burst redly into her heart. Gratia was the man's mother, and she had been plying him with questions, cruelly curious. She caught a short, shallow breath, and hung her head, shrinking like a prodigal. "Set me down," she said. "I am not worthy to ride with you." "Pardon me," quoth the man; "you did not think, not knowing I was in pain." "Set me down," was all she said; "set me down--set me down." The man Pelleas changed his tone. "Madame," he said, with a sudden gentleness that made her desire to weep, "I have forgiven you. What, then, does it matter?" Igraine hung her head. "I am altogether ashamed," she said. She drew her hood well over her face, and took her reproof to heart like a veritable penitent. Even religious solemnities make little change in the notorious weaknesses of woman. Igraine was angry, not only for having blundered clumsily against the man's sorrow, but also because of the somewhat graceless part she seemed to have played after the deliverance he had vouchsafed her. As yet her character seemed to have lost honour fast by mere brief contrast with the man's. Pelleas meanwhile rode with eyes watching the wan stretch of road to the west. On either hand the woods rose up like nebulous hills bowelled by tunnelled mysteries of gloom. He had turned his horse to the grass beside the roadway, so that the tramp of hoofs should fall muffled on the air. Igraine, close against his steeled breast, with his bridle-arm about her, looked into his face from the shadows of her hood, and found much to initiate her liking.