Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/219

 in the same substance they are by nature strongly drawn and attracted to it. But Rupert de Launay seems not to have troubled himself greatly to encourage their fancies; for he was flying at more noble game, and studying the ground before he sat down and besieged the place in form. And it appears that he took the trouble to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the Chronicles of Penhow, so far as they related to my lady Eva, thus the keen pages told him all about her melancholy because she might not have another child, and also of the visit of the man in brown and yellow, and of her longing to smell the wonderful twelve-petaled rose that grew in the great wilderness. And when Rupert had found out these facts, and pondered them over in his mind, it is likely that he put them together and found links where nobody else had seen any, for he is acknowledged to have been very artful in the conduct of this affair, and to have shown great strategy and opiniastrety therein. For you must understand that all the while he was oversea he had cherished and cockered up his love for Eva St. Pol, keeping her portraiture before him when the trumpets sounded, and the steel began to ring; never telling his nearest friend a word about her, but burning his lamp of love in secrecy till the flame of it made the heart of him white hot and scorched his brain. And when at last he returned to Gwent and found his mistress the wife of old Sir Roger, he would doubtless have done well to look out for another sweetheart, but he rather added oil to the flame and determined to win her