She sought her couch, but sleep would not come.  The moonlight was too bright; the room too sweetly familiar.  Moreover it seemed but yesterday that she had parted from Hugh, in such an ecstasy of love and sorrow, up on the battlements.

A great desire seized her to mount to those battlements, and to stand again just where she had stood when she bade him farewell.

She rose.

Among the garments put ready for her use, chanced to be the robe of sapphire velvet which she had worn on that night.

She put it on; with jewels at her breast and girdle.  Then, with the mantle of ermine falling from her shoulders, and her beautiful hair covering her as a veil, she left her chamber, passed softly along the passage, found the winding stair, and mounted to the ramparts.

As she stepped out from the turret stairway, she exclaimed at the sublime beauty of the scene before her; the sleeping world at midnight, bathed in the silvery light of the moon; the shadows of the firs, lying like black bars across the road to the Castle gate.

“There I watched him ride away,” she said, with a sweep of her arm toward the road, “watched, until the dark woods swallowed him.  And here”—­with a sweep toward the turret—­“here, we parted.”

She turned; then caught her breath.

Leaning against the wall with folded arms, stood Hugh.

CHAPTER XLIV

“I LOVE THEE”

Mora stood, for some moments, speechless; and Hugh did not stir.  They faced one another, in the weird, white light.

At last:  “Did you make me come?” she whispered.

“Nay, my beloved,” he answered at once; “unless constant thought of thee, could bring thee to me.  I pictured thee peacefully sleeping.”

“I could not sleep,” she said.  “It seemed to me our Lady was not pleased, because, dear Knight, I have failed, in all these days, to tell you of her wondrous and especial grace which sent me to you.”

“I have wondered,” said the Knight; “but I knew there would come a time when I should hear what caused thy mind to change.  That it was a thing of much import, I felt sure.  The Bishop counselled me to give up hope.  But I had besought our Lady to send thee to me, and I could not lose my trust in prayer.”

“It was indeed our blessed Lady who sent me,” said Mora, very softly.  “Hugh, dare I stay and tell you the whole story, here and now?  What if we are discovered, alone upon the ramparts, at this hour of the night?”

Hugh could not forbear a smile.

“Dear Heart,” he said, “we shall not be discovered.  And, if we were, methinks we have the right to be together, on the ramparts, or off them, at any hour of the day or night.”

A low wooden seat ran along beneath the parapet.

Mora sat down and motioned the Knight to a place beside her.

“Sit here, Hugh.  Then we can talk low.”