"This," he said gaily, "is the red
rose of my heart. Battle-fields lay between us and tower walls, and the way
was long and hard to find, yet can you deny, my elf, that you came in and
plucked it and wore it away in your hair,--to keep or to cast aside as pleased
you?"
Smiles and tears growing together, she caught the blossom from him and pressed
it to her lips. "I will wear it in my bosom," she answered, "for my breast has
been empty--since the day I saw you first."
Smiling, he held out the white rose, but his mood had deepened until now he
looked down upon her as he had looked down upon her in the moonlit forest.
"This, beloved, is the symbol of my faith," he said. "Your eyes took it from
me that day at even-song. I hold it the dearer of the two, for with it goes my
honor that is as stainless as its petals. It is worth more than life to
me,--is it not worth some pricks to you?"
She took it from him reverently, to lay it beside the other, and as her face
was too proud for fear so was it too tender for jesting. "I am more honored,"
she told him, "than Canute by his crown; and I will live as bravely to defend
them."
But as he would have caught her to him, she leaned back suddenly to stretch a
hand toward a dark-robed figure standing under the moss-grown arch, and her
pride melted into a laugh of breathless happiness.
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