“Then he put his arms about my shoulders and loved me much; but at last he said:  ’Yet is it now another thing than that which I looked for, when I talked of setting thee by me on the golden throne.  For now am I a beaten man; I have failed of that I sought, and suffered shame and hunger and many ills.  Yet ever I thought that I might find thee here or hereby.’  Then a thought came into my mind, and I said:  ’Else maybe thou hadst found what thou soughtest, and overcome the evil things.’  ‘Maybe,’ he said; ‘it is now but a little matter.’”

“As for me, I could have no guess at what were the better things he had meant for me, and my heart was full of joy, and all seemed better than well.  And we talked together long till the day was gone.  Then we kissed and embraced each other in the Dale of Lore, and the darkness of summer seemed but short for our delight.”

CHAPTER 6

The Lady Tells Somewhat of Her Doings After She Left the Wilderness

Ralph stayed her speech now, and said:  “When I asked of thee in the Land of Abundance, there were some who seemed to say that thou hast let more men love thee than one:  and it was a torment to me to think that even so it might be.  But now when thine own mouth telleth me of one of them it irks me little.  Dost thou think it little-hearted in me?”

“O friend,” she said, “I see that so it is with thee that thou wouldst find due cause for loving me, whatever thou foundest true of me.  Or dost thou deem that I was another woman in those days?  Nay, I was not:  I can see myself still myself all along the way I have gone.”  She was silent a little, and then she said:  “Fear not, I will give thee much cause to love me.  But now I know thy mind the better, I shall tell thee less of what befell me after I left the wilderness; for whatever I did and whatever I endured, still it was always I myself that was there, and it is me that thou lovest.  Moreover, my life in the wilderness is a stranger thing to tell thee of than my dealings with the folk, and with Kings and Barons and Knights.  But thereafter thou shalt hear of me what tales thou wilt of these matters, as the days and the years pass over our heads.

“Now on the morrow we would not depart at once, because there we had some victual, and the king’s son was not yet so well fed as he should be; so we abode in that fair place another day, and then we went our ways westward, according to the rede of the carline; and it was many days before we gat us out of the wilderness, and we were often hard put to it for victual; whiles I sat behind my knight a-horseback, whiles he led the beast while I rode alone, and not seldom I went afoot, and that nowise slowly, while he rode the white horse, for I was as light-foot then as now.

“And of the way we went I will tell thee nought as now, because sure it is that if we both live, thou and I shall tread that road together, but with our faces turned the other way; for it is the road from the Well at the World’s End, where I myself have been, or else never had thine eyes fallen on me.”