dim. White and immaculate, beautifully strange, she was as an elf-child

fated to doom men to despair.

Tristan passed back, found her asleep under the tree. He stood beside her, gazed on the sleeping face. There was silent faith in that slumber; trust in the man who guarded her honour. The moonlight streamed on the upturned face, shining like ivory amid the gleam of her hair. How white her throat was, how her bosom rose and fell with the long pale hands folded thereon.

A sudden warmth flooded Tristan’s heart, and youth cried in him like a desirous wind. Should this beauty be mured in stone, this red rose be hid by convent trees? Was she not flesh and blood, born to love and to be loved in turn—and what was life but love and desire?

He crept near on his knees, hung over her breathlessly, gazing on her face. God, but to wake her with one long kiss, to feel those white arms steal round his neck! They were alone, the two of them, under the stars. For many minutes Tristan hung there like a man tottering on a crag betwixt sea and sky. Passion whimpered in him; his heart smote fast. Yet even as he crouched over Rosamunde asleep, some dream or vision seemed to trouble her soul. Her hands stirred, her lids quivered, her breath came fast betwixt her lips. A shadow as of pain passed over the moonlit face. Tristan, motionless, heard her utter a low cry, saw tears gleaming upon her cheeks.

Pity, the strong tenderness of his nobler self, rushed back into the deeps as a wave from a cliff. The black thoughts flew from his heart like bats frightened by the light of the sun. Great shame seized on Tristan; he fell down at the foot of a tree and prayed.