'Once more I greet you, dear lord!' she said, and as she touched his forehead with her lips, the birds still lingering in the forest burst into joyful song. When the knight found words to tell her of his great love, she plighted her troth to him, but only he heard her whispered promise that she would be his wife.
Once more she mounted her snow-white steed; he seated himself behind her, and thus they rode to the castle gates, accompanied by her maidens. Here the Lord of Argouges sprang to the ground; light as a wisp of thistledown, she floated into his arms, and to the amaze of the household, who had watched the approach of the procession from the castle windows, her horse, thrice neighing, changed into a bird, and fluttered sorrowfully away.
[Illustration: "The Lord of Argouges threw himself on his knees"]
'Farewell, sweet Queen!' her maidens cried, and kissing their hands to her, rode swiftly back to the depths of the forest.
Then the Lord of the Argouges drew the Lady of the Woods across the threshold of the castle, and so queenly was her beauty and so gracious her demeanour, that even his aged mother, jealous of the son for whom she would have shed her life-blood, found no word to say against his choice.
'My love for him is nought beside thine,' the Fée Queen pleaded very sweetly, 'for thou didst bring him into the world, and hast anguished for him as none else can. But I too have suffered on his behalf; I pray thee, let me love him too!'
Then his mother looked long and deeply into the eyes of the woman who had dethroned her from her dear son's heart, and what she saw there filled her with peace. 'Be it as thou wilt,' she said, and that self-same night the Lord of Argouges wedded his Lady of the Woods in the castle chapel, which was decked with the fragrant lilies that sprang wherever her feet had trod. The rejoicings lasted for seven days, and the Lord of Argouges looked as one to whom the gates of Paradise had opened.
The Queen of the Fées was now to all seeming a mortal woman, and so far from regretting that she had laid aside her rank, each day found her more content in her husband's love, and by every womanly art she knew she sought to please him. One favour only she asked of him--that never in her hearing would he mention the word 'Death.'