“And is it indeed the wilful Helen that ye love, messire?”

“Even she, unto my sorrow.”

“Thy sorrow?  Why then, messire—­forget her.”

“Ah!” sighed Beltane, “would I might indeed, yet needs must I love her ever.”

“Alack, and is it so forsooth,” quoth the nun, sighing likewise.  “Ah me, my poor, fond son, now doth thy reverend mother pity thee indeed, for thou’rt in direful case to be her lover, methinks.”

Now did my Beltane frown the blacker by reason of bitter memory and the pain of his wound.  “Her lover, aye!” quoth he, bitterly, “and she hath a many lovers—­”

“Lovers!” sighed the nun, “that hath she, the sad, sweet soul!  Lovers!  —­O forsooth, she is sick of a very surfeit of lovers,—­so hath she fled from them all!”

“Fled from them?” cried Beltane, his wound forgot, “fled from them—­ from Mortain?  Nay, how mean you—­how—­fled?”

“She hath walked, see you, run—­ridden—­is riding—­away from Mortain, from her lords, her counsellors, her varlets, her lovers and what not—­ in a word, messire, she is—­gone!”

“Gone!” quoth Beltane, breathless and aghast, “gone—­aye—­but whither?”

“What matter for that so long as her grave counsellors be sufficiently vexed, and her lovers left a-sighing?  O me, her counsellors!  Bald-pates, see you, and grey-beards, who for their own ends would have her wed Duke Ivo—­meek, unfortunate maid!”

“Know you then the Duchess, lady?”

“Aye, forsooth, and my heart doth grieve for her, poor, sweet wretch, for O, ’tis a sad thing to be a duchess with a multitude of suitors a-wooing in season and out, vaunting graces she hath not, and blind to the virtues she doth possess.  Ah, messire, I give thee joy that, whatsoever ills may be thine, thou can ne’er be—­a duchess!”

“And think you she will not wed with Ivo, lady—­think you so in truth?”

“Never, while she is Helen.”

“And—­loveth—­none of her lovers?”

“Why—­indeed, messire—­I think she doth—­”

“Art sure?  How know you this?”

“I was her bedfellow betimes, and oft within the night have heard her speak a name unto her pillow, as love-sick maids will.”

Now once again was Beltane aware of the throb and sting of his wounded arm, yet ’twas not because of this he sighed so deep and oft.

“Spake she this name—­often?” he questioned.

“Very oft, messire.  Aye me, how chill the wind blows!”

“Some lord’s name, belike?”

“Nay, ’twas no lord’s name, messire.  ’Tis very dark amid these trees!”

“Some knight, mayhap—­or lowly squire?”

“Neither, messire.  Heigho! methinks I now could sleep awhile.”  So she sighed deep yet happily, and nestled closer within his shielding arm.