Igraine almost smiled at him. "And not a nun?" For answer he spoke three simple words. "Gorlois might die." The stillness of the woods seemed like the hush of a listening multitude. A blue haze of heat hung over the rolling domes of the western trees, and never a wind-wave stirred the long grass. Mountainous clouds sailed radiant over ridge and spur, and it might have been Elysium where souls wandered through meads of asphodel. Igraine looked long over the valley with its stately trees, its flowering grass and quiet pool in the meadows. She was vastly calm, though her eyes were full of a woe that seemed to well up like water out of her soul. She still twisted and untwisted a strand of her hair about her wrist, but for all else she was as quiet as one of the trees that stood near and overshadowed her. "Pelleas," she said. The man came two steps nearer. "Go quickly." "Igraine!" "Man, man, how long will you torture me? I am only a little strong." The calm of tragedy seemed to dissolve away on the instant. Pelleas thrust his hands into the air like a swimmer sinking to his death. His heart answered Igraine's exceeding bitter cry. "Would we had never come to this!" "I cannot say that, though my heart breaks." Pelleas fell down and clasped her with his arms about the knees. His face was hidden in the folds of her surcoat. Presently he loosed his hold, looked up, took a ring from his hand and thrust it into her palm. "The signet of a king," he said; "keep it for need, Igraine. Have you money?" "I have money, Pelleas." "God guard you!" Igraine was white to the lips, but she never wavered. "Heaven keep you!" she said. Her voice was hoarse in her throat, and she began to shiver as though chilled by a sleety wind. "Go quickly, Pelleas; for God's sake hide your face from me!" "It is death; it is death!" He sprang up and left her without a look. Igraine saw him go through the long grass with his hand over his eyes, staggering like one sword-smitten to the brain. He never stared back at her, but held straight for the cottage and the cedar tree where his black horse was tethered under the shade. She watched him mount and gallop for the forest, nor did she move till his red harness had died into the gloom of the trees. XIII Down through the woods that morning rode Gorlois on his great white horse, with helmet clanging at saddle-bow, shield hung at his left shoulder, spear trailing under the trees. He was hot, thirsty, and in a most evil temper. His bronzed face glistened with sweat, and the chequered webs of light flickering through the leaves flashed fitfully upon his golden harness. Since dawn he had ridden the hills in the glare of the sun till his armour blazed like an oven; it was June weather, and hot at that; his tongue felt like wood rubbing against leather; it was a damnable month for bearing harness.