"Listen," she said. "I can do this for you. Give me your shield and sword, and let me lay them on the high altar under the cross with candles burning, and let me pray for them there. Will that comfort you, Pelleas?" "Yes," he said, with a sudden sad smile; "pray for me, go and pray for me, Igraine." It was the impulse of a moment. She bent down with a great thrill of wonder, and kissed the man's lips. It was soon done, soon sped. She saw Pelleas's blood stream to his face, saw something in his eyes that made her heart canter. Then she darted away, took up the great sword and the shield with its red face, and went to the chapel singing like a seraph. Her prayers were a strange jumble of worship and recollection. "Lord Jesu, cleanse his spirit," said her heart one moment; "truth, how he coloured and looked at me," it sang with more human refrain the next. "May he be a knight above knights," quoth devotion; "and may I be ever fair in his eyes," chimed love. Altogether, it was a most quaint prayer. Now, a certain mundane matter had been troubling Igraine's thought that day. The barge, seized and put to use by Morgan and her men, lay amid the reeds on the nether shore, ready to give passage to any chance wayfarer, welcome or otherwise, who should choose to cross the mere. The boat, so fixed, floated as a constant peril to Pelleas and herself. She felt that peace would flout them so long as the barge lay ready to play ferry-boat to any casual intruder. Pelleas's wound might keep them cooped many days in the place. She vowed to herself that the boat should be regained, and blushed when the oath accused her. At dusk, when the birds were piping, and there was a green hush over the world, she went back to Pelleas, a beautiful shameface, accompliced by the twilight. "I have prayed," she said simply. Pelleas touched her fingers. "I feel happier," he said. "That is well." "Stay near me, Igraine. It grows dark fast." "I shall be with you till you sleep," she said. Igraine fed him with her own hands, talking little the while, but feeling very enamoured of her lot. She was thinking of her new surprise with some mischieful pleasure as she tended Pelleas. The man was silent, yet very placid and facile to her willing. When she had bathed his face and neck, and seen him well couched, she took the lute Morgan had handled, and began to sing to him softly--wistfully, as though the song was the song of a quiet wind through willows. It was a chant for the dusk, for the quiet gazing of the first fires of heaven. Pelleas heard it like the distant touching of strings over charmed water, and with the breath of lilies over him he fell asleep. Igraine held by him still as a mouse in the dark, till she knew by his breathing that he was deep in slumber. Then she set the lute aside, put the lamp by the porch door, so that it should be ready to hand, and stole out into the garden.