The dark blue of the sky had faded to a pure and pearly colour; a colourless grey light invaded it; the pale stars were drowning; and all about him the trees shivered to the morning.  Wogan walked up and down that little plateau, torn by indecision.  Inside the sheltered cabin sat waiting the girl, whose destiny was in his hands.  He had a sentence to speak, and by it the flow of all her years would be irrevocably ordered.  She had given herself over to him,—­she, with her pride, her courage, her endurance.  Wogan had seen too closely into her heart to bring any foolish charge of unmaidenliness against her.  No, the very completeness of her submission raised her to a higher pinnacle.  If she gave herself, she did so without a condition or a reserve, body and bone, heart and soul.  Wogan knew amongst the women of his time many who made their bargain with the world, buying a semblance of esteem with a double payment of lies.  This girl stood apart from them.  She loved, therefore she entrusted herself simply to the man she loved, and bade him dispose of her.  That very simplicity was another sign of her strength.  She was the more priceless on account of it.  He went back into the hut.  Through the chinks of the shutter the morning stretched a grey finger; the room was filled with a vaporous twilight.

“We travel to Bologna,” said he.  “I will not have you wasted.  Other women may slink into kennels and stop their ears—­not you.  The King is true to you.  You are for the King.”

As she had not argued before, she did not argue now.  She nodded her head and fastened her cloak about her throat.  She followed him out of the hut and down the gorge.  In the northeast the sky already flamed, and the sun was up before they reached the road.  They walked silently towards Peri, and Wogan was wondering whether in her heart she despised him when she stopped.

“I am to marry the King,” said she.

“Yes,” said Wogan.

“But you?” she said with her brows in a frown; “there is no compulsion on you to marry—­anyone.”

Wogan was relieved of his fears.  He broke into a laugh, to which she made no reply.  She still waited frowning for his answer.

“No woman,” he said, “will ride on my black horse into my city of dreams.  You may be very sure I will not marry.”

“No.  I would not have you married.”

Wogan laughed again, but Clementina was very serious.  That she had no right to make any such claim did not occur to her.  She was merely certain and resolved that Wogan must not marry.  She did not again refer to the matter, nor could she so have done had she wished.  For a little later and while they were not yet come to Peri, they were hailed from behind, and turning about they saw Gaydon and O’Toole riding after them.  O’Toole had his story to tell.  Gaydon and he had put the courier to bed and taken his clothes and his money, and after the fellow had waked up, they had sat for a day in the bedroom keeping