The gallery ran round and round about him like a clacking wheel.

His heart beat tumultuously, and there was a strange humming sound in his ears.
The captain of the guard stumbled half distracted down the turret stair.
The old world had been destroyed in a moment and he was walking in a new, where perpetual roses bloomed and the spring birds sang for evermore.

He knew not, this poor foolish Sholto, that he had much to learn ere he should know all the tricks and stratagems of this most naughty and prettily disdainful minx, Mistress Maud Lindesay.
But for that night at least he thought he knew her heart and soul, which made him just as happy..