Lady Beatrice remained silent and sad. When they reached her gates he
asked her permission to enter; then she said: "Some day, not now."

He rode away without a jest, for she had never before refused him any
courtesy, and his heart was heavy within him. That night he could not
sleep, but tossed upon his bed, sometimes grieving because he had not
seen the magic Tree and so had been made of no worth in the Lady
Beatrice's eyes; sometimes in anguish because she had not allowed him to
enter her gates.

But in all this he loved himself, so the pain was but transitory, and
next day he put on his finest doublet of leaf-green satin lined with
primrose silk and edged with pale corals, and rode to her gates. There
the porter brought back word that the Lady Beatrice could not see him.

Sir Godfrey was angry then, and he sought to make her jealous. Next day
when at the jousts, he sat at the feet of her cousin, Lady Alladine, nor
did he look towards the Lady Beatrice.

But all that only heaped fire on his own heart, and he rode home to his
castle with his brow dark. The singing birds seemed to mock him, and he
thought he heard the shrill laughter of the goblin-men, who live in the
deep dells. That night he could not sleep; but murmured again and again
that she was his own love, and not the Lady Alladine.

So full of meekness he rode next day to the castle of his heart's life,
but the porter brought back to him the same message, and Sir Godfrey
departed full of anguish. His pain, like a scourge, drove him on and on
until he was far off in the desert amid the tangled and tripping briers
and the keen-edged stones. The rain beat upon his head and upon his