Warwick Deeping

“ They were holding over vapoury meadows with their faces to the west.
Pelleas was very stoical that morning. As a matter of fact he had been awake all night, couched with misery and with thoughts that wounded him. All night through the lagging hours he had tossed and turned, cursing his destiny in his heart--too bitter for any prayer. What mockery that he who had passed so long unscathed should fall into hopeless homage to a nun. Desperate, he left his bed in the dark, and made the garden a dim cloister until dawn. ”

“ Such was the determination that met Igraine's lighter humour that morning. She could make nothing of the man as she rode before him. He was bleak, dismal, yet striving to seem contented with their lot, now conjuring up a withered smile, now lapsing into interminable silence. His eyes were stern in measure, but there was the old light in them when she looked deeply, and the staunch flame was there still. After all, Pelleas's quiet humour did not trouble her very vastly. ”

“ The place, with its solitude and stillness, pleased Igraine very greatly.
"What say you, Pelleas," she said, "let us off-saddle, and harbour here the night. This little refuge will serve us more kindly than a ride in the dark to Winchester."
Pelleas, looked round about him, knelt for once without struggle to his own inmost wishes, and agreed with Igraine.
"Very good," he said. I can build you a bower to sleep in. There are hazels yonder--just the stuff for a booth. The water there looks sweet enough to drink, and we have ample in the cloth for a supper." ”

“ Igraine smiled to herself at the callous benignity of his counsel. He might have been her grandfather by his manner.
"You see," she said naively, "I do not like being caged; it spoils one's temper so. I have an uncle in the place--an uncle by marriage--a man not loved vastly by the proud folk of my own family. He is a goldsmith by trade, and is named Radamanth."
Pelleas's quick answer was not prophetic of great favour.
"Radamanth," he said--" a gentleman who weighs his religion by the pound, and is seen much at church. ”

“ It was after such a night in the furnace of struggle that he forged his temper for the days to come. He had thought to meet love with a stark hardihood, to talk lightly, to go with unruffled brow while his heart hungered. Nothing should move him to any emotion. He would meet destiny like a rock, let surges beat and melt back to the sea. ”

“ A smoking villa, a burnt village with a dun mist hanging over it like a shroud, and once a naked man, bruised and bloody, bound to a tree, and shot through with arrows--such were the few sights that remembered to them their own need of caution. ”

“ She caught his eyes with hers, and gave him one long, deep stare that made him quake as though all that had been flame within him--that which he had sought to tread to ashes--had but spread redly into her bosom. There was no parrying such a message. It smote him blind in a moment. The spiritual bastions of his soul seemed to reel and rock as though some chaos had broken on their stones. There was great outcry in his heart, as of a leaguer when guards and stormers are at grapple on the walls. "Cross! ”