Whether her hair be golden or raven,
Whether her eyes be hazel or blue,
I know not now, it will be engraven
Some day hence as my loveliest hue.
She may be humble or proud, my lady,
Or that sweet calm which is just between;
But whenever she comes, she will find me ready
To do her homage, my queen, my queen."


Was it possible that the cruel boy-god "who sharpens his arrows on the
whetstone of the human heart" had found the moment to avenge himself
for the neglect of his altars and the scorn of his power? Must that
redoubted knight-errant, the hero of this tale, despite the Three
Fishes on his charmed shield, at last veil the crest and bow the knee,
and murmur to himself, "She has come, my queen"?



CHAPTER VIII.

THE next morning Kenelm arrived at Oxford,--"Verum secretumque
Mouseion."

If there be a place in this busy island which may distract the passion
of youth from love to scholarship, to Ritualism, to mediaeval
associations, to that sort of poetical sentiment or poetical
fanaticism which a Mivers and a Welby and an advocate of the Realistic
School would hold in contempt,--certainly that place is Oxford,--home;
nevertheless, of great thinkers and great actors in the practical