the hayfields.  And this I said—­though ’twas not a thing I have learned from any chaplain—­that when ’twas said he should make an honest woman of her, it was my thought that she had been honest from the first, being too honest to know that the world was not so, and that even the man a woman loved with all her soul, might be a rogue, and have no honesty in him.  And at last—­’twas when I talked to him about the child—­and that I put my whole soul’s strength in—­he burst out a-crying like a schoolboy, and said indeed she was a fond little thing and had loved him, and he had loved her, and ’twas a shame he had so done by her, and he had not meant it at the first, but she was so simple, and he had been a villain, but if he married her now, he would be called a fool, and laughed at for his pains.  Then was I angry, Gerald, and felt my eyes flash, and I stood up tall and spoke fiercely:  ‘Let them dare,’ I said—­’let any man or woman dare, and then will they see what his Grace will say.’”

Osmonde drew her to his breast, laughing into her lovely eyes.

“Nay, ’tis not his Grace who need be called on,” he said; “’tis her Grace they love and fear, and will obey; though ’tis the sweetest, womanish thing that you should call on me when you are power itself, and can so rule all creatures you come near.”

“Nay,” she said, with softly pleading face, “let me not rule.  Rule for me, or but help me; I so long to say your name that they may know I speak but as your wife.”

“Who is myself,” he answered—­“my very self.”

“Ay,” she said, with a little nod of her head, “that I know—­that I am yourself; and ’tis because of this that one of us cannot be proud with the other, for there is no other, there is only one.  And I am wrong to say, ‘Let me not rule,’ for ’tis as if I said, ‘You must not rule.’  I meant surely, ’God give me strength to be as noble in ruling as our love should make me.’  But just as one tree is a beech and one an oak, just as the grass stirs when the summer wind blows over it, so a woman is a woman, and ’tis her nature to find her joy in saying such words to the man who loves her, when she loves as I do.  Her heart is so full that she must joy to say her husband’s name as that of one she cannot think without—­who is her life as is her blood and her pulses beating.  ’Tis a joy to say your name, Gerald, as it will be a joy”—­and she looked far out across the sun-goldened valley and plains, with a strange, heavenly sweet smile—­“as it will be a joy to say our child’s—­and put his little mouth to my full breast.”

“Sweet love,” he cried, drawing her by the hand that he might meet the radiance of her look—­“heart’s dearest!”

She did not withhold her lovely eyes from him, but withdrew them from the sunset’s mist of gold, and the clouds piled as it were at the gates of heaven, and they seemed to bring back some of the far-off glory with them.  Indeed, neither her smile nor she seemed at that moment to be things of earth.  She held out her fair, noble arms, and he sprang to her, and so they stood, side beating against side.