Then spake Ellaline, the Queen, with quiet voice, saying, "What wouldst thou, Flame, son of Lokus? My daughter Roseheart hath seeming of some ill-hap with which thou hast to do."
Therewith did Flame drop the hands of Roseheart his love, and standing before the Queen her mother, he spake on this wise: "I know not what this thing may be, but somewhat hath been laid upon my will, so that choice it hath none. Wherefore, though thy daughter Roseheart is as the blood of Flame Speaketh Plainlymy heart to me, and fain would I take her to wife straightway, yet first must I go across the sea, and through all the earth, until I find a certain woman whose form is radiance and whose eyes are stars, that I may fashion of her in pure marble a Mother of Men that shall fulfill the dream of my soul. Not of my willing is this thing laid upon me. But the Lord God when I was born put into my soul the vision, and into my hands the cunning to fashion the shape of my vision. Therefore must I go, and abide the will of the Lord God lest He destroy me. Whether I shall return I know not, for many will be the perils of the way, The Pain of Roseheartbut in my heart meseems I know that I shall return and take to wife the maid Roseheart, whom in all honour I love and cherish."
Hearing these words at the last, Roseheart found somewhat of courage beyond that she had had, and looked into the eyes of Flame. Therein was no longer her own white body, as she had feared to see, but the noble form of a woman whose white silken draperies flowed and clung, whose form was radiance, and whose eyes were stars. With her were little children. And Roseheart, gazing, beheld the form of radiance, and the faces of the A White Stillnesschildren, as somewhat known, and not known, and in her heart was a white stillness, and no anger that Flame would leave her to seek this woman, but only the pain of longing, and a meekness like that of Mary, the Blessed Mother.
Flame, pitiful of the still sorrow of Roseheart, clasped her to his breast, and kissed her thrice upon the forehead. But the Lure of the Way of Life was upon him, and turning strongly from the maid and the Queen, her mother, he said: "Good greeting must I give you, from the heart, and long farewell, for that I must be about the Flame, His Farewellbusiness the Lord God hath set me. But ere I go, I would see Telwyn, and speak with him of that I have to do."
IV.
Flame, His Farewell
ALL silently they three together sought Telwyn, the King, but now returned from the hunt, and sitting at meat with his men in the great banquet hall of the castle.