The crumpled letter fell to the ground.

“Helen!” he whispered, “Beloved, I am all of this, so do I need thy comfort, thy cherishing, and all thy dear love—­turn thy head—­O Helen, how red is thy sweet mouth!” Then stooped he, and so they kissed each other, such kisses as they ne’er had known, until she sighed and trembled and lay all breathless in his arms.

“O my lord,” she whispered, “have mercy, I pray!  Dear Beltane, loose me for I—­I have much to tell thee.”

And because of her pleading eyes he loosed her, and she, sinking upon the bench, leaned there all flushed and tremulous, and looking on him, sighed, and sighing, put up her hands and hid her face from his regard.

“Beltane,” she whispered, “how wondrous a thing is this our love, so great and fierce it frighteth me—­see how I tremble!” and she held out to him her hands.

Then came he and knelt before her, and kissed those slender fingers amain.

“Dear hands of Fidelis,” said he, “but for their tender skill and gentle care I had not lived to know this night—­O brave, small hands of Fidelis!”

“Poor Fidelis!” she sighed, “but indeed it wrung my heart to see thy woeful face when I did tell thee Fidelis was lost to thee—­Nay, Beltane, stay—­O prithee let me speak—­”

Quoth Beltane ’twixt his kisses: 

“Wherefore wert so cold and strange to me but yesterday?”

“Dear my heart,” she murmured, “I needs must make thee suffer a little—­ just a very little, for that I had known so much of pain and heartache because of thee.  But I was glad to see thee bear the wallet of poor Fidelis—­and O, ’twas foolish in thee to grieve for him, for he being gone, thy Helen doth remain—­unless, forsooth, thou had rather I came to thee bedight again in steel—­that did so chafe me, Beltane—­indeed, my tender skin did suffer much on thy account—­”

“Then soon with my kisses will I seek—­” But a cool, soft hand schooled his hot lips to silence and the while he kissed those sweet arresting fingers, she spake ’twixt smiling lips:  “Prithee where is my shoe that was Genevra’s?  Indeed, ’twas hard matter to slip it off for thee, Beltane, for Genevra’s foot is something smaller than mine—­a very little!  Nay, crush me not, messire, but tell me, what of him ye came hither seeking—­the man in the long cloak—­what of him?”

“Nought!” answered Beltane, “the world to-night doth hold but thee and me—­”

“Aye, my Beltane, as when sick of thy wound within the little cave I nursed thee, all unknown.  O love, in all thy sickness I was with thee, to care for thee.  Teaching good Roger to tend thee and—­to drug thee to gentle sleep that I might hold thee to me in the dark and—­kiss thy sleeping lips—­”

“Ah!” he sighed, “and methought ’twas but a dream!  O Helen, sure none ever loved as we?”

“Nay, ’twere thing impossible, Beltane.”

“And thou art truly mine?”