monk as I am should care to win, I contended with my spiritual father.
Spare me the particulars; I got some shrewd knocks over it, but I did
win this much. You are to be hanged to-morrow, Isoult, or noosed in
another way. A ring is to play a part. You shall be bride of the tree
or a man's bride. I won this, and left the Abbot chuckling, for much
as he knows he has not guessed that the goose-girl, the tossed-out
kitchen-girl, the scarecrow haunter of the heath, should be sought in
marriage. But I knew more than he; and now," he said, stooping over
the bent girl,--"and now, Isoult la Desirous, come with me!"

He tried to draw her towards him, but she trembled in his hands so
much that he had to give over. He began his arguments again, reasoned,
entreated, threatened, cajoled; he could not contain himself now,
being so near fruition. The spell of the forest was upon him. "Let
Love be the master," he said, "for there is no gainsaying him, nor can
cloister walls bar his way; but his flamy wings top even these. Ah,
Isoult!" he cried out in his passion; "ah, Isoult la Desiree, come,
lest I die of love and you of the tree."

The girl, who feared him much more than the death he had declared, was
white now and desperate. But she still held him off with her stiffened
arms and face averted. She tried to cheapen herself. "I am Matt's bad
daughter, I am Matt's bad daughter! All the tithing holds me in scorn.
Never speak of love to such as I am, Galors." And when he tried to
pull her she made herself rigid as a rod, and would not go.

So love made the man mad, and spread and possessed him. Contest goaded
Galors: action was his meat and dominion what he breathed; by
resisting she had made the end more sure. By her imprisoned wrists he
drew her in, and when she was so close that her head was almost upon