This he discovered through encountering her one day as she re-entered Osmonde House, returning from some such errand, clad in dark, plain garments, her black hood drawn over her face, being thereby so disguised that but for her height and bearing he should not have recognised her—­indeed, he thought, she had not seen and would have passed him in silence.

He put forth his hand and stayed her, smiling.

“Your Grace!” he said, “or some vision!”

She threw the black hood back and her fair face and large black eyes shone out from beneath its shadows.  She drew his hand up and kissed it, and held it against her cheek in a dear way which was among the sweetest of her wifely caresses.

“It is like Heaven, Gerald,” she said, “to see your face, after beholding such miseries.”

And when he took her in his arm and led her to the room in which they loved best to sit in converse together, she told him of a poor creature she had been to visit, and when she named the place where she had found her, ’twas a haunt so dark and wicked that he started in alarm and wonder at her.

“Nay, dear one,” he said, “such dens are not for you to visit.  You must not go to them again.”

She was sitting on a low seat before him, and she leaned forward, the black hood falling back, framing her face and making it look white.

“None else dare go,” she said; “none else dare go, Gerald.  Such places are so hideous and so noisome, and yet there are those who are born and die there, bound hand and foot when they are born, that they may be bound hand and foot to die!” She rose as if she did not know she moved, and stood up before him, her hand upon her breast.

“’Tis such as I should go,” she said, “I who am happy and beloved—­after all—­after all!  ’Tis such as I who should go, and carry love and pity—­love and pity!” And she seemed Love’s self and Pity’s self, and stood transfigured.

“You are a saint,” he cried; “and yet I am afraid.  Ah! how could any harm you?”

“I am so great and strong,” she said, in a still voice, “none could harm me if they would.  I am not as other women.  And I do not know fear.  See!” and she held out her arm.  “I am a Wildairs—­built of iron and steel.  If in a struggle I held aught in my hand and struck at a man—­” her arm fell at her side suddenly as if some horrid thought had swept across her soul, like a blighting blast.  She turned white and sank upon her low seat, covering her face with her hands.  Then she looked up with awed eyes.  “If one who was so strong,” she said, “should strike at a man in anger, he might strike him dead—­unknowing—­dead!”

“’Tis not a thing to think of,” said his Grace, and shuddered a little.