So wore autumn into winter, and the frost came, and the snow, with prodigious winds from out of the mountains:  yet was not the weather so hard but that they might go forth most days, and come to no hurt if they were wary of the drifts; and forsooth needs must they go abroad to take venison for their livelihood.

So the winter wore also amidst sweet speech and friendliness betwixt the two, and they lived still as dear friends, and not as lovers.

Seldom they spoke of the Quest, for it seemed to them now a matter over great for speech.  But now they were grown so familiar each to each that Ursula took heart to tell Ralph more of the tidings of Utterbol, for now the shame and grief of her bondage there was but as a story told of another, so far away seemed that time from this.  But so grievous was her tale that Ralph grew grim thereover, and he said:  “By St. Nicholas! it were a good deed, once we are past the mountains again, to ride to Utterbol and drag that swine and wittol from his hall and slay him, and give his folk a good day.  But then there is thou, my friend, and how shall I draw thee into deadly strife?”

“Nay,” she said, “whereso thou ridest thither will I, and one fate shall lie on us both.  We will think thereof and ask the Sage of it when we return.  Who knows what shall have befallen then?  Remember the lighting of the candle of Utterbol that we saw from the Rock-sea, and the boding thereof.”  So Ralph was appeased for that time.

Oft also they spake of the little lands whence they came, and on a time amidst of such talk Ursula said:  “But alas, friend, why do I speak of all this, when now save for my brother, who loveth me but after a fashion, to wit that I must in all wise do his bidding, lad as he is, I have no longer kith nor kin there, save again as all the folk of one stead are somewhat akin.  I think, my dear, that I have no country, nor any house to welcome me.”

Said Ralph:  “All lands, any land that thou mayst come to, shall welcome thee, and I shall look to it that so it shall be.”  And in his heart he thought of the welcome of Upmeads, and of Ursula sitting on the dais of the hall of the High-House.

So wore the days till Candlemass, when the frost broke and the snows began to melt, and the waters came down from the mountains, so that the river rose over its banks and its waters covered the plain parts of the valley, and those two could go dryshod but a little way out of their cavern; no further than the green mound or toft which lay at the mouth thereof:  but the waters were thronged with fowl, as mallard and teal and coots, and of these they took what they would.  Whiles also they waded the shallows of the flood, and whiles poled a raft about it, and so had pleasure of the waters as before they had had of the snow.  But when at last the very spring was come, and the grass began to grow after the showers had washed the plain of the waterborne mud, and the