Even as she stood there, gazing over the hills and woods where the river wound down towards the sea, she saw a black shape glide from the trees over the broadening bosom of the Gloire. She saw oars flash and glisten against the setting sun. Right in the golden path came a barge, bearing for Holy Guard across the river.
Rosamunde stood back and watched the boat with both hands folded over her heart. Then without a word she sprang away, sped down the galleries in the dusk, where many a shaft of gold smote through the narrow windows in the walls. Out through the ruined gate she sped, and down the rough path towards the river.
Nor was she so speedy that she reached the river before the barge had foamed up to the strand, where a narrow waterway wound to a wooden quay. Rosamunde, halting under a wind-twisted fir, saw four soldiers moving up the path, bearing upon a bed the figure of a man. Before them, some twenty paces, walked a woman whose face was turned towards the walls of Holy Guard. Rosamunde knew her as she climbed the path, Blanche of the North, even the Duchess.
The two women met on the narrow path that climbed the wild hillside from the waters of the Gloire. A great glory covered the sea, while the dark woods seemed steeped in shadow, as though the trees had drawn black cowls over their green polls. From the west came the hoarse murmur of the waves, as they foamed in over the yellow sand.
Blanche held out her hands to Rosamunde.
“Sister,” she said, “I bring you back Tristan from the mountains.”
As for Rosamunde, she was white as death, nor had she words wherewith to answer the Duchess. Going to the litter, she saw Tristan lying there with a grey face and great shadows under his sunken eyes. So weak was he that he could but stretch a hand to her as she drew near and touched his forehead with her lips.
“Rosamunde,” he said, with a great sigh.
Her hot tears fell upon his face, as she wept there, even before the men who bore him.
“Tristan, look not thus at me,” she said, “for I have been shamed out of all my pride.”