‘Hearken,’ she said, ‘autumn is now a-dying into winter: let winter and its snows go past: nor seek to me hither; for me thou should’st not find, but thy death thou mightest well fall in with; and I would not that thou shouldest die. When winter is gone, and spring is on the land, if thou hast not forgotten us thou shalt meet us again. Yet shalt thou go further than this Woodland Hall. In Shadowy Vale shalt thou seek to me then, and there will I talk with thee.’ ‘And where,’ said he, ‘is Shadowy Vale? for thereof have I never heard tell.’ She said: ‘The token when it cometh to thee shall show thee thereof and the way thither. Art thou a babbler, Gold-mane?’ He said: ‘I have won no prize for babbling hitherto.’ She said: ‘If thou listest to babble concerning what hath befallen thee on the Mountain, so do, and repent it once only, that is, thy life long.’ ‘Why should I say any word thereof?’ said he. ‘Dost thou not know the sweetness of such a tale untold?’ He spake as one who is somewhat wrathful, and she answered humbly and kindly: ‘Well is that. Bide thou the token that shall lead thee to Shadowy Vale. Farewell now.’ She drew her hand from his, and turned and went her ways swiftly to the house: he could not choose but gaze on her as she went glittering-bright and fair in that grey place of the mountains, till the dark doorway swallowed up her beauty. Then he turned away and took the path through the pine-woods, muttering to himself as he went: ‘What thing have I done now that hitherto I had not done? What manner of man am I to-day other than the man I was yesterday?’ CHAPTER VIII. FACE-OF-GOD COMETH HOME AGAIN TO BURGSTEAD. FACE-OF-GOD went back through the wood by the way he had come, paying little heed to the things about him. For whatever he thought of strayed not one whit from the image of the Fair Woman of the Mountain-side.