The Forest Lovers

He dressed her in green silk because she was fresh-coloured and had

black hair. If she had been pale, as when he first knew her, and as

she was to be again before he knew her no more, the dress would have

been red, depend upon it. He put a gold ring on her finger, a jewel on

her forehead, a silver mirror and a Book of Hours bound in silver

leaves to swing at her girdle. Her chamber was hung with silk arras,--

the loving history of Aristotle and a princess of Cyprus;--she had two

women to wait upon her, to tire her hair in new ways and set new

crowns upon it; she had a close garden of her own, with roses and a

fountain, grass lawns, peacocks. She had pages to serve her kneeling,

musical instruments, singing boys and girls. He gave her a lap-dog.

Finally he kissed her and said-"You are to be queen of this place, Isoult the Much-Desired."

All this the Abbot did. This also he did--his crowning piece. He

caused her to wear round her waist a girdle made of bright steel in

which was a staple. To the staple he fixed a fine steel chain--a toy,

a mimicry of prisons, but in fact a chain--and the other end of a

chain was fixed to a monk's wrist. The chain was fine and flexible, it

was long, it could go through the keyhole--and did--but it was a

chain. Wherever the girl went, to the garden, to table, to music, to

bed, abroad, or to Mass, she was chained to a monk and a monk to her.

The Abbot Richard rested on the seventh day, contemplating his labours

with infinite relish. It seemed to him that this was to be politic

with an air. So far as he might he did everything in that manner.

Isoult bore the burden much as she had borne the thwackings of the

charcoal-burners, with ingrained patience. Seriously, one only cross

fretted her--the loss of her ring. This indeed cried desertion upon

her. Prosper had never seemed so far, nor his love so faint and ill-

assured. It would seem that kindness really killed her by drugging her

spirit as with anodyne. As she had fallen at Gracedieu, so she fell

now into a languid habit where tears swam in flood about the lids of

her eyes, where the eyes were too heavy for clear sight and the very

blood sluggish with sorrow. She grew pale again, hollow-eyed,

diaphanous--a prism for an unearthly ray. Her beauty took on its elfin

guise; she walked a ghost. Night and day she felt for the ring; though

she knew it was not there, her hand was always in her vest, her bosom

always numb and cold. Sometimes her urgent need was more than she

could bear. A trembling took her, an access of trembling which she

could not check. At such times, if others were about her, she would

sit vacant and speechless, smiling faintly for courtesy; her eyes

would brim over, the great drops fall unchecked. There would be no

sobbing, very little catching of the breath. The well of misery would

fill and overflow, gently and smoothly irresistible. Then the shaking

would cease and the fount be dry for a season. So she grew more a

spirit and less a maid; her eyes waxed larger, and the pupils whelmed

the grey in jet.