since our
riders had gone to the north against them of the Burg: but as I drew
near to the Water of the Oak, I fell in with my husband and that other
man; and this time all my naysays were of no avail, and whatsoever I
might say he constrained me to go with them; but straightway they fell
out together, and fought, even as thou sawest." And she looked at him
sweetly, and as frankly as if he had been naught but her dearest
brother.

But he said: "It was concerning thee that they fought: hast thou known
the Black Knight for long?"

"Yea," she said, "I may not hide that he hath loved me: but he hath
also betrayed me. It was through him that the Knight of the Sun drave
me from him. Hearken, for this concerneth thee: he made a tale of me
of true and false mingled, that I was a wise-wife and an enchantress,
and my lord trowed in him, so that I was put to shame before all the
house, and driven forth wrung with anguish, barefoot and bleeding."

He looked and saw pain and grief in her face, as it had been the shadow
of that past time, and the fierceness of love in him so changed his
face, that she arose and drew a little way from him, and stood there
gazing at him. But he also rose and knelt before her, and reached up
for her hands and took them in his and said: "Tell me truly, and
beguile me not; for I am a young man, and without guile, and I love
thee, and would have thee for my speech-friend, what woman soever may
be in the world. Whatever thou hast been, what art thou now? Art thou
good or evil? Wilt thou bless me or ban me? For it is the truth that
I have heard tales and tales of thee: many were good, though it maybe
strange; but some, they seemed to warn me of evil in thee. O look at
me, and see if I love thee or not! and I may not help it. Say once for
all, shall that be for my ruin or my bliss? If thou hast been evil,
then be good this one time and tell me."

She neither reddened now, nor paled at his words, but her eyes filled
with tears, and ran over, and she looked down on him as a woman looks
on a man that she loves from the heart's root, and she said: "O my
lord and love, may it be that thou shalt find me no worse to thee than
the best of all those tales. Forsooth how shall I tell thee of myself,
when, whatever I say, thou shalt believe every word I tell thee? But O
my heart, how shouldest thou, so sweet and fair and good, be taken with
the love of an evil thing? At the least I will say this, tha