Then there was that strange and beautiful woman, Quilla, to whom my heart went out and not only because she was beautiful, and who, as I thought, at times looked kindly on me.  But if so, what did it avail; seeing that she was promised in marriage to some high-placed native man who would be a king?  Surely I had known enough of women who were promised in marriage to other men, and should do well to let her be.

Thinking thus, desolation took hold of me and I sat myself down on a rock and covered my face with my hands that I might not see the tears, which I knew were gathering in my eyes, as they fell from them.  Yes, there in the midst of that awful solitude, I, Hubert of Hastings, whose soul it filled, sat down like a lost child and wept.

Presently I felt a touch upon my shoulder and let fall my hands, thinking that Kari had found me out, to hear a soft voice, the voice of Quilla, say: 

“So it seems that the gods can weep.  Why do you weep, O God-from-the-Waves who here are named Hurachi?”

“I weep,” I answered, “because I am a stranger in a strange land; I weep because I have not wings whereon I can fly away like that great bird above us.”

She looked at me awhile, then said, most gently: 

“And whither would you fly, O God-from-the-Sea?  Back into the sea?”

“Cease to call me a god,” I answered, “who, as you know well, am but a man though of another race than yours.”

“I thought it but I did not know.  But whither would you fly, O Lord Hurachi?”

“To the land where I was born, Lady Quilla; the land that I shall never see again.”

“Ah! doubtless there you have wives and children for whom your heart is hungry.”

“Nay, now I have neither wife nor child.”

“Then once you had a wife.  Tell me of that wife.  Was she fair?”

“Why should I tell you a sad story?  She is dead.”

“Dead or living, you still love her, and where there is love there is no death.”

“Nay, I only love what I thought she was.”

“Was she false, then?”

“Yes, false and yet true.  So true that she died because she was false.”

“How can a woman be both false and true?”

“Woman can be all things.  Ask the question of your own heart.  Can you not perchance be both false and true?”

She thought awhile and, leaving this matter, said: 

“So, having once loved, you can never love again.”

“Why not?  Perchance I can love too much.  But what would be the use when more love would but mean more loss and pain?”

“Whom should you love, my lord Hurachi, seeing that the women of your own folk are far away?”

“I think one who is very near, if she would pay back love for love.”

Quilla made no answer, and I thought that she was angry and would go away.  But she did not; indeed, she sat herself down upon the stone at my side and covered her face with her hands as I had done and began to weep as I had done.  Now in my turn I asked her: