smiling. He bent towards her.

"You seem amazingly fond of your chains," he said softly. "And yet, from
what I have heard, Sir Roland is no gentle tyrant. How is it, pretty
one? What makes you cling to your bondage so?"

"He is my husband!" she said, through white lips.

"Faith, that is no answer," he declared. "Own, now, that you hate him,
that you loathe his presence and shudder at his touch! I told you I was
a magician, Lady Una; but you wouldn't believe me at all."

She confronted him with a sudden fury that marvellously reinforced her
failing courage.

"You lie, sir!" she cried, stamping passionately upon the soft earth. "I
do none of these things. I have never hated him. I have never shrunk
from his touch. We have not understood each other, perhaps, but that is
a different matter, and no concern of yours."

"He has not made you happy," said the jester persistently. "You will
never go back to him now that you are free!"

"I will go back to him!" she cried stormily. "How dare you say such a
thing to me? How dare you?"

He came nearer to her.

"Listen!" he said. "It is deliverance that I am offering you. I ask
nothing at all in return, simply to make you happy, and to teach you the