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he was deplorably human. So they were married, and ridicule gnawed off my wings.

“I paraded murder and suicide and fields of glory through my mind to fight this little paining ridicule. In my shame, I thought to lock up my songs from the world, so that never again might people hear them. The world did not even know when I was gone. No little groups of people came to plead with me to return—and I had promised the ridicule they would. My bitten wings dropped; I was a man and did not want the moon. And when I tried to sing again, my voice had grown husky like a drover's voice, and my songs were thick with forethoughts and plannings.”

“I wonder how I grew,” Robert said. “I do not remember. Perhaps my youth went out of me sticking to coins—or perhaps it lives in those lands I used to dream of. But Henry is swimming in his dreams, and sometimes I am very jealous of him.

“Do you know, Merlin, there is a thing which has appeared strange to me. My mother, Gwenliana, thought she had the second sight, and we humored her because she took such joy of it. And on the night that Henry went away, she cast a picture of his life. Merlin, nearly all her words have come to be the truth. Can these thoughts have come on her like a series of bright paintings? It is a strange, unlikely thing.”

“Perhaps she read his desire, Robert, and sensed the strength of his desire. I taught old Gwenliana many things which had to do with magic; she was very apt at reading signs—and faces.”