Again she caught wildly at her failing courage, and drew herself up to her full height. Perhaps she might awe him, even yet.
"Sir," she said, "I am Sir Roland Brooke's wife. And I—"
"Egad!" he broke in banteringly, "that was yesterday. You are free to-day. I have brought you out of bondage. We have found paradise together, and, my pretty Lady Una, there is no way back."
"But there is, there is!" she cried desperately. "And I must find it! I tell you I am Sir Roland Brooke's wife. I belong to him. No one can keep me from him!"
It was as though she beat upon an iron door.
"There is no way out of the magic circle," said the jester inexorably.
A white shaft of light illumined the mist above them, revealing the girl's pale face, making sinister the man's masked one. He seemed to be smiling. He bent towards her.
"You seem amazingly fond of your chains," he said softly. "And yet, from what I have heard, Sir Roland is no gentle tyrant. How is it, pretty one? What makes you cling to your bondage so?"
"He is my husband!" she said, through white lips.
"Faith, that is no answer," he declared. "Own, now, that you hate him, that you loathe his presence and shudder at his touch! I told you I was a magician, Lady Una; but you wouldn't believe me at all."