"Leave matters to my discretion. You there, in the brown smock, fall back twenty paces. Madame, I wait for you. Let us go cheek by jowl."
The man wheeled his horse, shook his spear, hurled a glance backward over his shoulder into the woods. There was no gainsaying him for the moment. Yeoland, bending to necessity, sent Jaspar loitering, while she flanked the black destrier with her brown jennet. She debated keenly within herself whither this adventure could be leading her, as she rode on with this unknown rider into the wilds.
The man in the red cloak was wondrous mute at first, an iron pillar of silence gleaming under the trees. The girl knew that he was watching her from behind his salade, for she caught often the white glimmer of his stare. He bulked largely in the descending gloom, a big man deep of chest, with shoulders like the broad ledges of some sea-washed rock. He was richly appointed both as to his armour and his trappings; to Yeoland his shield showed a blank face, and he carried no crest or token in his helmet.
They had ridden two furlongs or more before the man stepped from his pedestal of silence. He had been studying the girl with the mood of a philosopher, had seen her stark, strained look, the woe in her eyes, the firm closure of her lips. The strong pride of grief in her had pleased him; moreover he had had good leisure to determine the character of her courage. His first words were neither very welcome to the girl's ears nor productive of great comfort, so far as her apprehensions were concerned. Bluntly came the calm challenge from the casque.
"Daughter of Rual of Cambremont, you have changed little these five years."
Yeoland gave the man a stare. Seeing that his features were screened by his helmet, the glance won her little satisfaction. She knew that he was watching her to his own profit, and her discovery, for the reflex look she had flashed at him, must have told him all he desired, if he had any claim to being considered observant. There was that also in the tone and tenor of his words that implied that he had ventured no mere tentative statement, but had spoken to assure her that her name and person were not unknown to him. Acting on the impression, she tacitly confessed to the justice of his charge.
"Palpably," she said, "my face is known to you."
"Even so, madame."
"How long will you hold me at a disadvantage?"
"Is ignorance burdensome?"