Then Elliot's face grew deadly pale, her lower lip stiff, as when she was angered with me at Chinon, and so, wrying her neck suddenly to the left, she rode on her way, nor ever looked towards us again.
"Who may that proud damsel be, and what ails her at my roses ?" quoth Charlotte, sitting herself down again and still following them with her eyes.

"Methinks I have seen her face before; and what ails you ?" she asked, looking earnestly on me, "for you are as white as the last snow ere it melts in spring." I had good reason to be pale, for I very well guessed that Elliot, having ridden in the Maiden's company to see me, and to surprise me with the unlooked-for gladness of her coming, had marked Charlotte as she so innocently leaned on me and laughed to me, and had conceived anger against us both, for of a truth Charlotte was very fair and of a joyous aspect.

Yet, taken so suddenly as I was, between the extreme of delight in looking on my lady beyond hope, and the very deep of sorrow that she had so bitterly slighted me, I was yet wary of betraying myself.

For the girl beside me had, in all honest and maidenly service that woman may do for man, been kinder to me than a sister, and no thought or word of earthly love had ever passed between us.

That she should wot of Elliot's anger, and of its cause, and so hold my lady lightly, ay, and triumph over her in her heart (as is the nature of a woman, her ministry being thus churlishly repaid), was more than I could endure.