“Aye, I love thee, Helen of Mortain—­though there be many fair lords to do that!  But, as for me—­I am only a smith, and as a smith greatly would I despise thee.  Yet may this not be, for as my body is great, so is my love.  Go, therefore, thy work here is done, go—­get thee to thy knightly lovers, wed this Duke who seeks thee—­do aught you will but go, leave me to my hammers and these green solitudes.”

So spake he, and turning, strode away, looking not back to where she stood leaning one white hand against a tree.  Once she called to him but he heeded not, walking ever with bowed head and hearing only the tumult within him and the throbbing of his wounded heart.  And now, in his pain needs must he think of yet another Helen and of the blood and agony of blazing Troy town, and lifting up his hands to heaven he cried aloud: 

“Alas! that one so fair should be a thing so evil!”

All in haste Beltane came to his lonely hut and taking thence his cloak and great sword, he seized upon his mightiest hammer and beat down the roof of the hut and drave in the walls of it; thereafter he hove the hammer into the pool, together with his anvil and rack of tools and so, setting the sword in his girdle and the cloak about him, turned away and plunged into the deeper shadows of the forest.

But, ever soft and faint with distance, the silvery voices of the bells stole upon the warm, stilly air, speaking of pomp and state, of pride and circumstance, but now these seemed but empty things, and the Duchess Helen stood long with bent head and hands that strove to shut the sounds away.  But in the end she turned, slow-footed amid the gathering shadows and followed whither they called.

* * * * *

But that night, sitting in state within her great hall of Mortain, the Duchess Helen sighed deep and oft, scarce heeding the courtesies addressed to her and little the whispered homage of her guest Duke Ivo, he, the proudest and most potent of all her many wooers; yet to-night her cheek burned beneath his close regard and her woman’s flesh rebelled at his contact as had never been aforetime.  Thus, of a sudden, though the meal was scarce begun, she arose and stepped down from the dais, and when her wondering ladies would have followed forbade them with a gesture.  And so, walking proud and tall, she passed out before them, whereat Duke Ivo’s black brow grew the blacker, and he stared before him with narrowed eyes, beholding which, the faces of my lady’s counsellors waxed anxious and long; only Winfrida, chiefest of the ladies, watched the Duke ’neath drooping lids and with a smile upon her full, red lips.

Now the Duchess, being come to her chamber, lifted her hands and tore the ducal circlet from her brow and cast it from her, and, thereafter, laid by her rings and jewels, and coming to the open casement fell there upon her knees and reached forth her pale hands to where, across the valley, the dark forest stretched away, ghostly and unreal, ’neath the moon.