The Red Axe. S. R. Crockett

to Plassenburg. Or, if you are already Sir Proud-Heart, you can repay me one day, with usury if you will. I care not to stand on observances with you, nor desire that you should feel any obligation to a feeble old man."

      "I am not proud," I said, "and my sense of obligation is already greater than ever I can hope to discharge."

      "I thank you, my lad," he said. "Often have I wished for a son of the flesh like you as you passed the window with your companions—but go, go!"

      And with his hand he pushed me out upon the stair-head and shut the door.

      For a space I knew not where I stood. For what with the turmoil of my thoughts and the myriad of impressions, hopes, fears, visions, regrets to leave the Red Tower, the city of Thorn, the hope of seeing again that high-poised head of burned gold of the Lady Ysolinde, I paused stock-still, moidered and dazed, till a light hand touched me on the shoulder and the soft, even voice spoke in my ear.

      "Master Hugo," said the Lady Ysolinde, bending kindly to me, "I am glad, very glad—aye, though you have made my head ache" (here she nodded blamefully and laid her hand upon her heart as if that ached too)—"it is the best of fortunes, and sure to come true. Because have I seen it at six o'clock of a Thursday in the time of full moon."

      "Come hither," she said, beckoning me; "we shall try another way of it yet, in spite of the headache. It may be that there is more that concerns you for me to see in the ink-pool."

      With this she took my hand and almost pulled me down the stairs by force. As we went I saw the wild head and staring eyeballs of Jan the Lubber Fiend peering at us. He was lying on the back staircase, prone on his stomach, apparently extending from top to bottom down the swirl of it, and with his chin poised on the topmost step. But as we came down the stair the head seemed to be wholly detached from any body. The red ears actually flapped with mirthful pleasure and anticipation at the sight of the Lady Ysolinde, and no man could see both the beginning and end of that smile.

      "Lubber Jan," said she, "go and sit in the yard. The servants will be complaining of thee again, that they cannot come up the staircase, even as they did before."

      "Then, if I do," mumbled the monster, "will you look out of window at least once in each hour, between every stroke of the clock. Else will Jan not stop in the yard, but come within to feast his eyes on thee."

      "Yes, Jan," she said, smiling with a gentle complaisance which made me like her somewhat better than before, "I will look out at least once in the hour."

      And turning a little she smiled again at me, still holding me by the hand. The Lubber Fiend pulled his forelock, and reaching downward his head, as if he had the power of stretching out his neck like an arm, he kissed the cold pavement where her foot had rested a moment before. Then he rather retracted himself, serpentwise, then betook him in Christian fashion down the stair, and we heard him move out amid a babel of servatorial recriminations into the outer yard.

      "A poor innocent," said the Lady Ysolinde; "one that worships me, as you see. He is so great of stature and so uncouth that the children persecute him, and some day he may do one of them an injury. Years ago I rescued him from an evil pack of them and brought him hither. So that is the reason why he cleaves to me."

      "An excellent reason, my lady," said I, "for any to cleave to you."

      "Ah," she said, wistfully, "only fools think of Ysolinde in the city of Thorn. Some are afraid and pass by, and the rest are as the dogs that lick the garbage in the streets. Here I have no friends, save my father only, and here or elsewhere I have never had any that truly loved me."

      "But you are young—you are fair," I answered. "Many must come seeking your favor." Thus did I begin lumpishly enough to comfort her. But at my first words she snatched her fingers away angrily, and then in a moment relented.

      "You mean well," she said, giving her hand back to me again, "but it is not pity Ysolinde needs nor yet desires. But that is no matter. Come in hither and see what may abide for you in the depths of the black pool."

      At the curtained doorway she turned and looked me in the eyes.

      "If you were as other young men it would be easy for you to misjudge me. This is mine own work-chamber, and I bid you come into it, having seen you but an hour ago. Yet never a man save my father only hath set his foot in it before. Inquire carefully of your companions in the city of Thorn, and if any make pretension to acquaintance with the Lady Ysolinde of the White Gate strike him in the face and call him liar, for the sake of the favor I have shown you and the vision I saw concerning you in the crystal."

      I stooped and kissed her hand, which was burning hot—a thin little hand, with long, supple fingers which bent in one's grasp.

      "The man who would pretend to such a thing is dead even as he speaks," said I; and I meant it fully.

      "I thank you—it is well," she answered, leading me in. "I only desired that you should not misjudge me."

      "That could I never do if I would," I made her answer. "Here my every thought is reverence as in the oratory of a saint."

      She smiled a strange smile.

      "Mayhap that is rather more than I desire," she said. "Say rather in the maiden bower of a woman who knows well whom she may trust."

      Again I kissed her hand for the correction. And, as I remembered afterwards, it was at that hour that the little Princess Playmate was used to look within my chamber to see that all was ready for me.

      And, had I known it, even that night she stooped over and kissed the pillow where my head was to lie.

      "Dear love!" she was used to say.

      Alas that I heard it not then!