within him and the throbbing of his wounded heart. And now, in his pain
needs must he think of yet another Helen and of the blood and agony of
blazing Troy town, and lifting up his hands to heaven he cried aloud:

"Alas! that one so fair should be a thing so evil!"

All in haste Beltane came to his lonely hut and taking thence his cloak
and great sword, he seized upon his mightiest hammer and beat down the
roof of the hut and drave in the walls of it; thereafter he hove the
hammer into the pool, together with his anvil and rack of tools and so,
setting the sword in his girdle and the cloak about him, turned away
and plunged into the deeper shadows of the forest.

But, ever soft and faint with distance, the silvery voices of the bells
stole upon the warm, stilly air, speaking of pomp and state, of pride
and circumstance, but now these seemed but empty things, and the
Duchess Helen stood long with bent head and hands that strove to shut
the sounds away. But in the end she turned, slow-footed amid the
gathering shadows and followed whither they called.

* * * * *

But that night, sitting in state within her great hall of Mortain, the
Duchess Helen sighed deep and oft, scarce heeding the courtesies
addressed to her and little the whispered homage of her guest Duke Ivo,
he, the proudest and most potent of all her many wooers; yet to-night
her cheek burned beneath his close regard and her woman's flesh
rebelled at his contact as had never been aforetime. Thus, of a sudden,
though the meal was scarce begun, she arose and stepped down from the
dais, and when her wondering ladies would have followed forbade them