Igraine had sudden insight into the core of Gorlois's nature. She understood, in a vague, swift way, what primæval instincts were hid in him ready at the beck of baser feelings such as jealousy or smitten pride. Woman-like, she recoiled from a man whose strength was so inflexible that it owned no pity or leavening kindness where malice or anger was concerned. She loved strength, and the natural wrath of a man, but she had no touch of the Semiramis about her, and her heart could not echo Gorlois's wolf-like cry. The rowers had turned the barge, and they were soon back again under the shadows of the trees. It was dim and ghostly with the onrush of night, while a faint fire flickered through the trees from the west and touched the sullen water with a reddish flame. Gorlois's face was in the shadow. He was leaning over the tiller towards Igraine, and his eyes seemed to burn out upon her face and to make her heart beat faster. She sat as much away from him as the gunwale suffered, and looked ahead over the misty river, or up into the dense, black bosoms of the trees. The foamy rush of the oars and the grind of the looms in the rowlocks half drowned Gorlois's words as he spoke to her. "Igraine." "My lord." "You have read me to the heart." Igraine turned and looked him full in the face. Now that the brunt had come, she was strong and ready to tell the man the truth, though it might be bleak and bitter to his pride. Gorlois was very near her, and she could see his white teeth between his lips, and the glint of his eyes as he leant towards her in the shadows. "Are you ambitious, Igraine?" "No, my lord." "Not even a little?" "My lord, I have no more ambition in me than one of those dead men hanging athwart the sunset." "You are a queer woman." "Pardon, I have a conscience." Gorlois bit his lip, stared in her face, and set a hand upon her wrist. "You can never shirk me," he said. "I never shirk the truth." "Come now, give me the word." "My lord, may I save you pain in the telling of it! You can never come near my heart." "Woman, never be so sure." Gorlois drew back, and said never another word. Igraine watched him furtively as his keen profile hung near her in the dusk clear as marble. Now and again his eyes gleamed out upon her and made her fear the moment, while the oars swung out over the smiling stream, and the black woods started by like night. Soon the lights of Winchester showed up against the northern sky, and far ahead over a straight stretch of water they could see the lanterns and torches of the folk who kept festival. A golden mist and the noise of music came down to them, as they surged under the great water-gate and ran on through the city amid a glimmering web of lights and laughter. Soon the barge found the shallows under white walls, and Igraine was standing on the steps leading to Radamanth's garden, with a starry sky sweeping like a wheel above the world.