point where you are weakest; moreover, those knights who in time past have done wild, mad things merely at their ladies’ word, scarcely did so for duty; for they owed their lives to their country surely, to the cause of good, and should not have risked them for a whim, and yet you praised them the other day.’  ‘Did I?’ said Lawrence; ’well, in a way they were much to be praised, for even blind love and obedience is well; but reasonable love, reasonable obedience is so far better as to be almost a different thing; yet, I think, if the knights did well partly, the ladies did altogether ill:  for if they had faith in their lovers, and did this merely from a mad longing to see them do ‘noble’ deeds, then they had but little faith in God, Who can, and at His good pleasure does give time and opportunity to every man, if he will but watch for it, to serve Him with reasonable service, and gain love and all noble things in greater measure thereby:  but if these ladies did as they did, that they might prove their knights, then surely did they lack faith both in God and man.  I do not think that two friends even could live together on such terms, but for lovers,—­ah!  Ella, Ella, why do you look so at me? on this day, almost the last, we shall be together for long; Ella, your face is changed, your eyes—­O Christ! help her and me, help her, good Lord.’  ‘Lawrence,’ she said, speaking quickly and in jerks, ’dare you, for my sake, sleep this night in the cavern of the red pike? for I say to you that, faithful or not, I doubt your courage.’  But she was startled when she saw him, and how the fiery blood rushed up to his forehead, then sank to his heart again, and his face became as pale as the face of a dead man; he looked at her and said, ‘Yes, Ella, I will go now; for what matter where I go?’ He turned and moved toward the door; he was almost gone, when that evil spirit left her, and she cried out aloud, passionately, eagerly:  ’Lawrence, Lawrence, come back once more, if only to strike me dead with your knightly sword.’  He hesitated, wavered, turned, and in another moment she was lying in his arms weeping into his hair.

“’And yet, Ella, the spoken word, the thought of our hearts cannot be recalled, I must go, and go this night too, only promise one thing.’  ‘Dearest, what? you are always right!’ ’Love, you must promise that if I come not again by to-morrow at moonrise, you will go to the red pike, and, having entered the cavern, go where God leads you, and seek me, and never leave that quest, even if it end not but with death.’  ’Lawrence, how your heart beats! poor heart! are you afraid that I shall hesitate to promise to perform that which is the only thing I could do?  I know I am not worthy to be with you, yet I must be with you in body or soul, or body and soul will die.’  They sat silent, and the birds sang in the garden of lilies beyond; then said Ella again:  ’Moreover, let us pray God to give us longer life, so that if our natural lives are short for the accomplishment