Croquart yawned behind his arm. He rose, threw a bundle of sticks upon the fire, and called TÊte Bois aside towards the horses. The free lance was a little bowlegged, brown-faced Gascon, very tough and wiry, with eyes like a hawk’s and a sharp nose and beard.

“Hello! can you keep awake to-night?” and Croquart shook him by the shoulder. “We are in the way of earning a lapful of crowns. I will give you a thousand crowns if we bring the Sieur de Tinteniac to Morlaix.”

TÊte Bois’s eyes lost their sleepiness and twinkled like the eyes of a rat.

“A thousand crowns, captain?”

“I say it again. Take this ring as a pledge. No tricks, or I shall pay you in other coin.”

“Trust me,” and he took the ring; “you can go to sleep in peace. Madame and her gentleman are safe by the fire. Go to sleep, captain,” and he assumed the responsibility with an alert swagger.

“No tricks, little one.”

“A thousand crowns, captain!” and his eyes twinkled. “Curse me, I love you.”

Bertrand saw the Fleming turn back towards the fire, where TiphaÏne was helping Tinteniac to wrap himself in his cloak for the night. Bertrand buried his face in the grass, as though unable to watch them at such an hour as this. TiphaÏne, upon her bed of golden broom, had a sacredness for him, even though she slept at another man’s side. She was pure, irreproachable, herself still, and no carnal thoughts made his happier memories bleed.

When Bertrand lifted his face again from the grass, Tinteniac, muffled in his cloak, lay full length upon the bed of broom; while TiphaÏne, leaning against the screen of boughs, had unloosed her hair and was combing it with a little silver comb. Croquart, a mass of dusky red, sprawled by the fire, his naked sword under his arm and his shield propped against the saddle under his head. TÊte Bois’s short and bow-legged figure went to and fro with a shimmer of steel, his shadowy face and the polished back of his bassinet turned alternately towards Bertrand as he kept his guard.

Bertrand, forgetting Croquart and the sentinel, watched TiphaÏne as she combed her hair. Her cloak, turned back a little, drew with its crimson lining rivers of color from the whiteness of her throat. Tossed by the comb, her hair glimmered in the firelight, rich whorls of mystery moving about her face. To Bertrand her eyes seemed to look far into the night, but what her thoughts were he could not tell.

He saw her put her comb away at last, turn and look at Tinteniac, who seemed ready to forget his wounds in sleep. She stretched a hand towards him, slowly, tentatively, but drew back sharply as Croquart found his bed uncharitable and shifted his body with much heaving of the shoulders. TÊte Bois’s keen profile showed against the firelight, mustachios upturned, nose beaking out from under the rim of his open bassinet.

“Madame had better sleep. We travel early.”

The fellow had seen her stretch out her hand towards Tinteniac, and the words warned her that the Gascon was not to be cajoled. His strut was independent and alert as he turned his back on her abruptly and resumed his marching to and fro.

TiphaÏne lay down on the bed, so that, though her face was hidden from Bertrand, he could see the glitter of her hair. There was the length of a sword between her and Tinteniac, three feet of flowering broom between the green cloak and the gray. Bertrand in his heart thanked God that he could see her so, separate, untouched under the moon. He could not have looked at TiphaÏne if she had lain wrapped in Tinteniac’s arms. Twice he saw her lift her head and look at Croquart and the rest. An hour passed before weariness seemed to overpower distrust, and her stillness showed him that she was asleep.

TÊte Bois, tired of pacing to and fro, had come to a halt some ten paces from the fire, and now leaned heavily upon his spear. The Gascon was amusing himself by calculating how far a thousand crowns would go to making him the master of a troop of horse. The pieces kept up a fantastic dance before his eyes. He handled them lovingly in anticipation, letting them slip through his fingers in glittering showers, pouring them upon a table and listening to the joyous clangor of the metal. The moon was but a great crown-piece so far as TÊte Bois was concerned. He took off the ring Croquart had given him as a pledge, and held it out towards the fire to watch the flashing of the stones.

Unfortunately for TÊte Bois, greed dulled the keenness of his senses, and he neither saw nor heard the stealthy and sinuous moving of a black shape across the moonlit grass. The Gascon might have swallowed his thousand crowns for supper to judge by the nightmare that leaped on him out of the mists of the silent woods.

Dawn came, and Croquart the Fleming was the first to wake. He yawned, stretched himself, and sat up sleepily, his red face suffused, his surcoat wet with the heavy dew. Gray mist hung everywhere over the forest, though in the east there was a faint flush of rose and of gold. The birds were piping in the thickets. Tinteniac and the lady were still asleep.

Croquart smiled at them as a farmer might smile over the fatness of two prize beasts. He scrambled up and looked round him for TÊte Bois, thinking that the Gascon might have gone to cut fodder for the horses. The bow-legged paladin was nowhere to be seen. The watch-fire was out, though the embers still steamed in the cold air of the morning.

“Hallo, there, TÊte Bois!”

The deep voice, resonant from the Fleming’s chest, woke echoes in the woods and silenced the birds singing in the thickets. Harduin, the second free lance, sat up and rubbed his eyes like a cat pawing its face. Tinteniac turned from sleep to find his wounds stiff and aching under the sodden bandages. TiphaÏne, propped upon one elbow, her hair falling down to touch the flowering broom, saw Croquart striding to and fro, flourishing a stick, restless and impatient.

“TÊte Bois, rascal, hallo!”

A few rabbits scurried down the misty glades, and a couple of partridges went “burring” into cover. The Fleming’s voice brought back nothing.

Croquart looked grim.

“The little Gascon devil!” he thought. “That ring was worth a hundred crowns, and a ring on the finger, Messire TÊte Bois, is worth a thousand crowns in my strong-box, eh? If I ever catch you, my friend, I will break your back. Let us see whether you have taken your own horse.”

But TÊte Bois’s horse was standing quietly with the rest, and the frown on the Fleming’s face showed that he was puzzled. What had happened to the fellow? And if he had deserted, why had he left his horse?

TÊte Bois’s disappearance opened the day ill-humoredly for the Fleming. The natural roughness of his temper broke to the surface, and he was sullen and abrupt, his affectations of refinement damp as his own finery with the night’s dew. TiphaÏne and her champion had never a smile from him as they made their morning meal and Croquart bustled them to horse, impatient as any merchant afraid of losing his silks and spices to footpads ambushed in the woods. Such baggage as they had was tied on the back of TÊte Bois’s horse, and before the sun had been up an hour they were on the road towards Morlaix.

The mists rolled away, leaving a dappling of clouds over the blue of the May sky. The grass glittered with dew, and the scent of the woods was like the scent of some cedar chest filled with the perfumed robes of a queen. The beech-trees, with their splendor of misty green, towered up beside the embattled oaks, whose crockets and finials seemed of bronze and of gold. The grass was thick with many flowers, the robes of the earth wondrous with color.

Yet beauty cannot save a man from pain, and before they had gone two leagues that morning TiphaÏne saw that Tinteniac suffered. From white his face had changed to gray, and his eyes had the wistful look that one sees in the eyes of a wounded dog. He had lost much blood and needed rest, for his harness and each jolting of the saddle gave him pain. Pride kept Tinteniac silent—the pride of the man unwilling to ask favors in defeat. The cool air of the morning had its balm, but when the sun rose above the trees the heat of the day made his forehead burn.

TiphaÏne, looking up at him with pitying eyes, saw how he suffered, though he told her nothing. Croquart, sullen and out of temper, had forged on ahead, feeling the smart of the rout at Josselin. The man Harduin, leading TÊte Bois’s horse, followed leisurely in the rear.

“Your wounds are too much for you.” And she drew her palfrey close to the great horse.

“No, child, no.”

“Tell the Fleming you must rest.”

Tinteniac straightened in the saddle with a slight shudder of pain.

“I can bear it longer,” he said, quietly.

“Why, sire, why? Croquart must let you rest.”

“Upon my soul, I will ask him no favor.”

“And upon my soul, sire, in ten minutes you will fall from your horse.”

She pushed past him without further parley and overtook the Fleming, who was biting his beard and looking as ill-tempered as it is possible for a man with an ugly jowl to look. TiphaÏne caught a glimpse of his solid and pugnacious profile before he turned to her with an impatient glint of the eyes.

“Well, madame, what now?”

“The Sieur de Tinteniac’s wounds are still open; he cannot travel farther without a rest.”

“Rest—a soldier asks for rest!”

TiphaÏne’s color deepened. The very arrogance of the man’s impatience fed her hate. She could have laid a whip across Croquart’s face with immense comfort to her self-respect.

“You answer me—that?”

“I command here, madame.”

“Then call a halt.”

“The Sieur de Tinteniac must hold on to the saddle till we reach the hills.”

“You have no pity!”

“I have no time to waste.”

“And I—no words.”

She reined in her palfrey, slipped from the saddle, and, leading the beast aside by the bridle, began to pick the flowers that grew in the long grass, as though she were at home in the La BelliÈre meadows. Croquart pulled up his horse, looking as black and threatening as a priest out-argued by a heretic. Tinteniac, guessing what had passed between them, reined up in turn and let his horse crop the grass.

Croquart’s veneer of chivalry cracked under the heat of the sun. TiphaÏne’s eyes had flattered him too little to persuade him to be pleased with a woman’s whims. He heeled his horse across the road, to see the Vicomte’s daughter retreating from him at her leisure, singing to herself and stooping to pick flowers.

“Madame!”

TiphaÏne went on with her singing.

“Devil take the woman!” And he pushed on after her, not knowing for the moment how to meet her tactics.

TiphaÏne stood in a pool of waving grass, where bluebells touched the hem of her gray gown. Great oaks, with tops of burnished gold, swept up beyond to touch the clouds. She reached out a white arm for the flowers, seeing the shadow of Croquart’s horse loom towards her over the grass. He was quite close before she turned and faced him, keeping her palfrey between her and the Fleming.

“Well, Messire Croquart,” and she gave him the title with a curl of the lip, “am I to believe that you have no manners?”

“A truce to this foolery.”

“I tell you, I am tired, sir, and I am going to rest.”

Croquart bit his beard.

“I shall have to dismount to you, madame.”

Her eyes blazed out at him, their splendor more visible now that she was angry.

“Dismount to me, you butcher boy from Flanders! No, that would be too gracious of you. Please continue to forget your manners.”

“Madame, I shall lose my temper with you.”

“It is lost already, Messire Croquart. Try the flat of your sword, or the edge thereof if it pleases you. I am not afraid.”

“I shall have to put you up into the saddle.”

“You cannot keep me from falling off.”

“Hands and feet can be tied, eh?”

“Yes, and I have a knife.”

“Pah, madame, am I a fool? I tell you I am in no temper to be bated.”

“Get down, then, sir, and see if you can run in your heavy harness. Meanwhile the Sire de Tinteniac might have his rest.”

Croquart opened his mouth to swear, but mastered himself with an effort, as though realizing that the species of dictatorship was not crowned with too much dignity.

“Come, madame, be reasonable.”

“Is it unreasonable, Messire Croquart, for a wife to fear that her husband may die of his wounds?”

“Oh—you exaggerate.”

“The weight of your blows? They were not too feeble.”

“Grace de Dieu, madame, have your way, or we shall be quarrelling here till midnight!”

“Then we rest for an hour?”

“I grant it.”

And he capitulated sulkily, with the air of a man giving way to the foibles of a woman.

Of all this by-play Bertrand had a distant view as he followed TiphaÏne through the green mystery of May. What were the golden meads to him, the winding woodways wonderful with spring, the dawn song of the birds, the scent of the wild flowers rising like incense out of the grass? To Bertrand that silent and unseen journey towards Morlaix seemed like a pilgrimage for the humbling of his heart. He followed, watched, planned, yet felt himself forgotten, reading into every incident that passed a woman’s tenderness for a man whom he himself could easily have loved.

Through the long watches of the night and the shining of the east at dawn Bertrand had wrestled with his loneliness. It was not easy for him to renounce so much, to accept forgetfulness, to look upon the past as a mere memory. And yet the very obstinacy of his new self-discipline helped him to throw his jealousy aside. What kind of creature would he find himself if he deserted TiphaÏne at such a pass, standing upon a mean punctilio, refusing to be generous save for his own ends? If he was to suffer, then let him serve and suffer like a man, remembering the old days when TiphaÏne had saved him from his shame.