“Old times!” repeated the other.  “Pictures that creep beneath the shut eyelid!—­frail sounds that outcry the storm!—­Shame’s most delicate, most exquisite goad!...  You cannot know how strange this day has been to me.”

“You cannot know how glad this day has been to me,” replied Arden, with a break in his voice.  “Do you remember, Mortimer, that I would have sailed with you in the Sea Wraith?”

“I forget nothing,” said the other.  “I think that I reviled you then....  See how far hath swung my needle!” He lifted his school-fellow’s hand to his cheek in a long, mute caress, then laying it down.  “There is one at home of whose welfare I would learn.  She is not dead, I know.  Her brother comes to me in my dreams with all the rest—­with all the rest,—­but she comes not.  Speak to me of Mistress Damaris Sedley.”

A short pause; then, “She is the fairest and the loveliest,” said Arden.  “Her beauty is a fadeless flower, but her eyes hold a history it were hard to read without a clue.  One only knows the tale is tragical.  She is most gentle, sweet, and debonair.  The thorns of Fortune’s giving she has twisted into a crown, and she wears it royally.  I saw her at Wilton six months ago.”

“At Wilton!  With the Queen?”

“No; she left the court long ago.  You and the Sea Wraith were scarce a month gone when that grim old knight, her guardian, would have made for her a marriage with some spendthrift sprig of more wealth than wit.  But Sidney, working through Walsingham and his uncle Leicester, and most of all through his own golden speech, got from the Queen consent to the lady’s retirement from the court, and so greatly disliked a marriage.  With a very noble retinue he brought her to his sister at Wilton, where, with that most noble countess, she abides in sanctuary.  When you take her hence—­”

Sir Mortimer laughed.  “When I take the rainbow from the sky—­when I leap to meet the moon and find the silver damsel in my arms indeed—­when yonder sea hath washed away all the blood of the earth—­when I find Ponce de Leon’s spring and speak to the nymph therein:  ’Now free me from this year, and this, and this, and this!  Make me the man that once I was!’ Then I will go a pilgrimage to Wilton.”

He rose and paced the room once or twice, then came back to Arden at the window.  “Old school-fellow, we are not boys now.  There be no enchanters; and the giant hugs himself in his tower, nor will come forth at any challenge; and the dragon hath so shrunken that he shows no larger than a man’s self;—­all illusion’s down!...  I thank thee for thy news of a lady whom I love.  I am full glad to know that she is in health and safety, among old friends, honored, beloved, fairer than the fairest—­” His voice shook, and for the moment he bowed his face within his hands, but repression came immediately to his command.  He raised his head and began again with a quiet voice, “I will write to her a letter, and you will be its bearer—­will you not, old friend? riding with it by the green fields and the English oaks to noble Wilton—­”