“Ah!”

“We will follow Gorlois to the war, you and I, Brastias, together. What say you to that?”

The man looked at her with clear grey eyes, and with a transient immobility of feature that changed swiftly to a glow of understanding. The words had gone home to him like a trumpet-cry; their courage warmed him, and he was carried with the wind.

“A great hazard—and a noble,” he said, with a flush of colour; “the peril is on my neck, and yet—I’ll bear it.”

Igraine’s face blazed.

“Brastias, you will go with me?”

“By my sword, to the death.”

“Come hither, man; I must kiss your forehead.”

Brastias knelt to her again with crossed hands. She looked into his grey eyes and touched his forehead with her lips.

“Thus I salute honour,” she said.