of a rose, And battened in the sun. At thought of him, Forgotten for a moment, Wyndham winced, And felt his wound.  “Why bides he not in Town With his blond lovelock and wench-luring ways—      There runs his fox! What foul fiend sends him here To Wyndham Towers? Is there not space enough In this our England he needs crowd me so? Has London sack upon his palate staled, That he must come to sip my Devon cream? Are all maids shut in nunneries save this one? What magic philtre hath he given her To thaw the ice that melted not for me? Rich is he now that at his setting forth Had not two silver pieces to his purse. It is his brave apparel dazzles her. Thus puts he bound and barrier to my love. Another man were he abused as I... I'll have no more of him! If I but dared—      Nay, I dare not. I have fawn's blood, I think; I would, and dare not!”  Thrice the hooded clock Solemnly, like some old Carthusian monk With meagre face half seen beneath his cowl, Intoned the quarter. Memory went not back When this was not a most familiar sound, Yet as each stroke on the dead silence fell Wyndham turned, startled. Now the sanguine moon, To clouded opal changing momently, Rose sheer above the pine-trees' ragged edge, And through the wide-flung casement reaching hand With cold and spectral finger touched the plates Of his dead father's armor till it gleamed One mass of silver. There it stood complete, That august panoply which once struck dread To foemen on the sunny plains of France, Menacing, terrible, this instant stood, With vizard down and jousting-lance at charge As if that crumbled knight were quick within. A footfall on the shingle walk below Grated, a footfall light as Mercury's Disdaining earth, and Wyndham in the dark, Half crouched upon the settle with his nails Indenting the soft wood-work, held his breath. Then suddenly a blind rage like a flame      Swept over him and hurled him to his feet—      Such rage as must have seized the soul of Cain Meeting his brother in the stubble-field. Anon came one that hummed a blithe sea-song, As he were fresh from tavern and brave cheer, And held the stars that blinked there in the blue Boon comrades. Singing in high-hearted way, His true-love's kiss a memory on his lip, Straight on he came to unrenowned end Whose dream had been in good chain-mail to die On some well-foughten field, at set of sun, With glorious peal of trumpets on his ear Proclaiming victory. So had he dreamed. And there, within an arch at the stair-top And screened 

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