He smiled and bowed.

"That is the sixth time I have got a bow when a word was due," she
said. "There may be a language of genuflections, but I do not know it."

He bowed again.

"Seven," she counted; "the perfect number--stop with it."

He put his hand to his lips and shook his head in negation--then
pointed to the sun and the tree, and shook his head again--then once
more to the sun and slowly upward to the top of the tree, and nodded in
affirmation.

She watched him with a puzzled frown.

"Are you trying to tell me why you do not speak?" she asked.

He nodded eagerly.

"Tell me again" . . . and she studied his motions carefully. . . "The
sun and the tree--and the sun and the tree again . . . is that your
meaning? . . . Ah! . . . the _top_ of the tree . . . I think I am
beginning to understand. . . . Where is your doublet?"

De Lacy pointed into the forest.

"And your bonnet? . . . with your doublet? . . . and your dagger? . . .
gone with the others? . . . you mean your ring? and it went with them,