nd said: "But
who is this man that he should slay me? And why is he thy tyrant, that
thou must flee from him?"

She laughed and said: "Fair creature, he is my husband."

Then Ralph flushed red, and his visage clouded, and he opened his mouth
to speak; but she stayed him and said: "Yet is he not so much my
husband but that or ever we were bedded he must needs curse me and
drive me away from his house." And she smiled, but her face reddened so
deeply that her grey eyes looked strange and light therein.

But Ralph leapt up, and half drew his sword, and cried out loud: "Would
God I had slain him! Wherefore could I not slay him?" And he strode up
and down the sward before her in his wrath. But she leaned forward to
him and laughed and said: "Yet, O Champion, we will not go back to him,
for he is stronger than thou, and hath vanquished thee. This is a
desert place, but thou art loud, and maybe over loud. Come rest by me."

So he came and sat down by her, and took her hand again and kissed the
wrist thereof and fondled it and said: "Yea, but he desireth thee
sorely; that was easy to see. It was my ill-luck that I slew him not."

She stroked his face again and said: "Long were the tale if I told
thee all. After he had driven me out, and I had fled from him, he fell
in with me again divers times, as was like to be; for his brother is
the Captain of the Dry Tree; the tall man whom thou hast seen with me:
and every time this baron hath come on me he has prayed my love, as one
who would die despaired if I granted it not, but O my love with the
bright sword" (and she kissed his cheek therewith, and fondled his hand
with both her hands), "each time I said him nay, I said him nay." And
again her face burned with blushes.

"And his brother," said Ralph, "the big captain that I have come across
these four times, doth he desire thee also?" She laughed and said:
"But as others have, no more: he will not slay any man for my sake."

Said Ralph: "Didst thou wot that I was abiding thy coming at the
Castle of Abundance?" "Yea," she said, "have I not told thee that I
bade Roger lead thee thither?" Then she said softly: "That was after
that first time we met; after I had ridden away on the horse of that
butcher whom thou slayedst."

"But why camest thou so late?" said he; "Wouldst thou have come if I
had abided there yet?" She said: "What else did I desire but to be
with thee? But I set out alone looking not for any peril,