Tristan le Sauvage rode with his eyes fixed on the burning clouds. Rosamunde was watching him with strange unrest. Since that first night in the woods he had held aloof from her, had spoken little, had harnessed himself with an iron pride. Yet at times, when his eyes had unwillingly met hers, she had seen the sudden gleam therein of a strong desire. She had watched the dusky colour rise on Tristan’s sunburnt face, the deep-drawn breaths that ebbed and flowed under the man’s hauberk. Though his mouth was as granite, though he hid his heart from her, she knew full well that he loved her to the death. The fine temper of his faith had humiliated and even angered her. Though his despair deified her vanity with heroic silence, the man’s courage made her miserable from sheer sympathy and shame.
They crossed a small stream and came to a sandy region where stunted myrtles clambered over the rocks, and tamarisk, tipped as with flame, waved in the wind. Storm-buffeted and dishevelled pines stood thicketed upon the hillocks. The place was sombre and very desolate, silent save for the low piping of the wind.
Neither Rosamunde nor Tristan had spoken since they left the woods and sighted Holy Guard. The man pointed suddenly with his hand towards the cliffs, the light of the setting sun streaming upon his white and solemn face.
“Yonder is Holy Guard,” he said to her.
There was a species of defiance in the cry, as though the man’s soul challenged fate. His heart’s cords were wrung in the cause of honour. Rosamunde quailed inwardly like one ashamed, her lips quivered, her eyes for the moment were in peril of tears.
“Yonder is Holy Guard,” she echoed in an undertone. “There I may escape the world and be at peace. Tristan, you have served me well.”
“Ah, madame,” he said, with increasing bitterness, “I have done my duty. Remember me, I pray you, in your prayers.”
“I shall not forget,” she answered him.
“Nor I,” he said, with some grim emphasis.
A narrow causeway curled upwards towards the towers upon the rock. The sea had sunk behind the cliffs; the sky faded to a less passionate colour. Rosamunde’s eyes were on the walls of Holy Guard, and she seemed lost in musings as they rode side by side.