And he stooped and pressed kiss after kiss upon her hand.

Gently she withdrew her fingers from his grasp and rode further apart,
yet not without one backward glance of perfectest witchery.

"I doubt you have been overmuch at Court already," she said. "I did
not well to ask you to go thither."

"Why must I not go thither?" he asked.

"Because I shall be there," she replied softly, courting him yet again
with her eyes.

As they rode on together through the rich twilight dusk, the young man
observed her narrowly as often as he could.

Her skin was fair with a dazzling clearness, which even the gathering
gloom only caused to shine with a more perfect brilliance, as if a
halo of light dwelt permanently beneath its surface. Faint responsive
roses bloomed on either cheek and, as it seemed, cast a shadow of
their colour down her graceful neck. Dark eyes shone above, fresh and
dewy with love and youth, and smiled out with all ancientest
witcheries and allurements in their depths. Her lithe, slender body
was simply clad in a fair white cloth of some foreign fabric, and her
waist, of perfectest symmetry, was cinctured by a broad ring of solid
silver, which, to the young man, looked so slender that he could have
clasped it about with both his hands.

So they rode on, through the woods mostly, until they reached a region
which to the Earl appeared unfamiliar. The glades were greener and