“My lady goes to her chamber.”
He passed up the stairs before her to the solar, thrust the door open, and stood aside for her to enter.
“Sleep, Isoult, and have no fear.”
Her eyes looked into his.
“Dear heart, I will pray for you.”
He gave her the torch, and she passed in, and Fulk closed the door after her. He brought up a bundle of straw and a dorser from the hall, made himself a bed there, and lay before her door that night, his naked sword beside him.
CHAPTER XXXI
Dawn came and Fulk awoke, to see through the arch of the doorway where the steps went down into the hall, the rays of light striking in through the narrow windows. Everything was very still. He arose noiselessly, and going down into the hall, went out through the great doorway into the garden.
A curtain of mist covered the mere, though the tops of the willows were glimmering in the sunlight. The roses were laden with dew, and the grass about the sun-dial was a carpet of silver grey.
The delight of the dawn stirred in his blood, the still, stealthy freshness of it all, the mystery, the moist perfumes. He went down to the mere’s edge, where the water lay black and still under the mist. The lure of the still water drew him. He stripped, hanging his clothes on a willow, and climbing into the stern of the barge, took his plunge thence, and came up in the thick of a ring of ripples.