Pelleas was very stoical that morning. As a matter of fact he had been awake all night, couched with misery and with thoughts that wounded him. All night through the lagging hours he had tossed and turned, cursing his destiny in his heart--too bitter for any prayer. What mockery that he who had passed so long unscathed should fall into hopeless homage to a nun. Desperate, he left his bed in the dark, and made the garden a dim cloister until dawn. Yet in the rack of struggle a clear voice had come to touch and dominate his being, and day had found him steadfast. He would hold to the truth, he vowed, do his duty, and let God judge of the measure of his gratitude. He could obey, but not with humility; he could suffer, but not with resignation. It was after such a night in the furnace of struggle that he forged his temper for the days to come. He had thought to meet love with a stark hardihood, to talk lightly, to go with unruffled brow while his heart hungered. Nothing should move him to any emotion. He would meet destiny like a rock, let surges beat and melt back to the sea. It was better thus, he thought, than to go moaning for the moon. Such was the determination that met Igraine's lighter humour that morning. She could make nothing of the man as she rode before him. He was bleak, dismal, yet striving to seem contented with their lot, now conjuring up a withered smile, now lapsing into interminable silence. His eyes were stern in measure, but there was the old light in them when she looked deeply, and the staunch flame was there still. After all, Pelleas's quiet humour did not trouble her very vastly. She had her own reading of the riddle, and a word in her heart that could unlock his trouble. Moreover, she was more than inclined to put him to such a test as should bring his manhood to a splendid trial. Perhaps there was some imp of vanity deep down in her woman's heart. At all events, she suited herself to the occasion, and passed much of the time in thought. A ride of some seventy miles lay before them before they should come to the gates of Winchester. Much of that region was wild forestland and moor, bleak wastes of scrub let into woods and gloom. Occasional meadows, and rare acres of glebe ringing some rude hamlet, broke the shadowy desolation of the land. Great oaks, gnarled, vast, and terrible, held giant sway amid the huddled masses of the lesser folk. Here the boar lurked, and the wolf hunted. But, for the most, it was dark and calamitous--a ghostly wilderness almost forsaken by man, and given over to the savagery of beasts.