She looked on him shyly, and he went on: "This also is strange, and, withal, it likes me not, that when I speak of my fair fellows here, David, and Gilbert, and Joanna, they are half forgotten to my heart, though their names are on my tongue; and this house, doth it like thee, fair guest?" "Yea, much," she said; "it seems joyous to me: and I shall tell thee that I have mostly dwelt in unmerry houses, though they were of greater cost than this." Said Christopher: "To me it hath been merry and happy enough; but now it seems to me as if it had all been made for thee and this meeting." "Is it therefore no longer merry to thee because of that?" she said, smiling, yet flushing much red therewith. Now it was his turn not to answer her, and she cast down her eyes before him, and there was silence between them. Then she looked at him steadily, and said: "It is indeed grievous that thou shouldest forget thine old friends for me, and that it should have come into thy mind that this fair and merry house was not made for thy fair fellows and thy delight with them, but for me, the chance-comer. For, hearken, whereas thou saidst e'en now, that I was become a part of thy life, how can that be? For if I become the poor captive again, how canst thou get to me, thou who art thyself a castaway, as thou hast told me? Yea, but even so, I shall be too low for thee to come down to me. And if I become what I should be, then I must tell thee that I shall be too high for thee to climb up to me; so that in one way or other we shall be sundered, who have but met for an hour or two." He hung his head a while as they stood there face to face, for both of them had arisen from the board; but presently he looked up to her with glittering eyes, and said: "Yea, for an hour or two; why then do we tarry and linger, and say what we have no will to say, and refrain from what our hearts bid us?" Therewith he caught hold of her right wrist, and laid his hand on her left shoulder, and this first time that he had touched her, it was as if a fire ran through all his body and changed it into the essence of her: neither was there any naysay in her eyes, nor any defence against him in the yielding body of her. But even in that nick of time he drew back a little, and turned his head, as a man listening, toward the door, and said: "Hist! hist! Dost thou hear, maiden?" She turned deadly pale: "O what is it? What is it? Yea, I hear; it is horses drawing nigh, and the sound of hounds baying. But may it not be thy fellows coming back?" "Nay, nay," he said; "they rode not in armour. Hark to it! and these hounds are deep-voiced sleuth-dogs! But come now, there may yet be time."