were hid in them—­’Why was all given to me,’ saith she, ’and naught to her?  Since Nature was not fair, then let me try to be so.  She is good, she is innocent, she is helpless.  I would learn of her.  Innocence one cannot learn, and helpless I shall never be, yet would I learn of her.’  She hath a great, strange spirit, Gerald, and strange fearlessness of thought.  What other woman dare arraign Nature’s self, and command mankind to retrieve her cruelties?”

Having finished his reading, my lord Duke turned to his window and looked out upon the night, which was lit to silver by the moon, which flooded the broad square before him and the park beyond it till ’twas lost in the darkness of the trees.

“No other woman—­none,” he said—­and such a tumult shook his soul that of a sudden he stretched forth his arms unknowing of the movement and spoke as though to one close at hand.  “Great God!” he said, low and passionate, “you call me, you call me!  Let me but look into your eyes—­but answer me with yours—­and all of Life is ours!”

CHAPTER XVII

As Hugh de Mertoun Rode

When he rode back upon the road which led towards Gloucestershire, ’twas early June again, as it had been when he journeyed to Camylott with Mr. Fox attending.  The sky was blue once more, there was the scent of sweet wild things in the air, birds twittered in the hedgerows and skylarks sang on high; all was in full fair leafage and full fair life.  This time Mr. Fox was not with him, he riding alone save for his servants, following at some distance, for in truth ’twas his wish to be solitary, and he rode somewhat like a man in a dream.

“There is no land like England,” he said, “there are no such meadows elsewhere, no such hedgerows, no such birds, and no such soft fleeced white clouds in the blue sky.”  In truth, it seemed so to him, as it seems always to an Englishman returning from foreign lands.  The thatched cottages spoke of homely comfort, the sound of the village church bells was like a prayer, the rustics, as they looked up from work in the fields to pull their forelocks as he rode by them, seemed to wear kindlier looks upon their sunburnt faces than he had seen in other countries.

“But,” he said to himself, and smiled in saying it, “it is because I am a happy man, and am living like one who dreams.  Men have ridden before on such errands.  Hugh de Mertoun rode so four hundred years gone, to a grey castle in the far north of Scotland, to make his suit to a fair maiden whose beauties he had but heard rumour of and whose face he had never seen.  He rode through a savage country, and fought his way to her against axe and spear.  But when he reached her she served him in her father’s banquet hall, and in years after used to kiss the scars left by his wounds, and sing at her harp the song of his journey to woo her.  But he had not known her since the time of her birth, and been haunted by her until her womanhood.”