He answered in his surly voice: Thou art right, lady, I cannot. Nay, hearken thou this time. I have been turning over night-long what thou didst say about leaving my lord, that is, betraying him, for it comes to that; and now I have made up my mind to do it, and I will betray him for thy sake. Wherefore there is a third way to take which thou hast not seen; we will ride out of this dale in an hour’s time, and I will bring thee to them who are only less the mortal foes of the Red Knight than are thy fellows of the Quest, to wit, to the captain and burgesses of the good town of Greenford by the Water; and I will do them to wit that I have rescued thee from the hands of the Red Knight, and am become his foe; and will show them all his incomings and outgoings, and every whit of rede, and entrap him, so that he fall into their hands. Now, though were I to be taken in battle by them, I should be speedily brought to the halter, or may be to the bale-fire (for we be wizards all in the Red Hold); yet with this word in my mouth, if they trow in it, I shall be made their captain, and presently their master. Trow in my tale they will, if thou bear me out therein, and they will honour thee, and suffer thee to give thyself to me in marriage; and then I know thee, and myself also, and that ere long we shall be both mighty and wealthy and beloved, and fair will be the days before us. His voice had grown softer as he spake, and toward the end of his words he faltered, and at last brake out a-weeping, and cast himself wordless on the grass before her. She was pale, and her brow was knitted, and her face quivered; but she spake coldly to him and said: This way I cannot take; and I wonder at thee that thou hast shown it unto me, for thyself thou knowest that I cannot go with thee. I will go nowhere hence save to the Castle of the Quest. If thou wilt not lead me thereto, or put me on the road, I ask thee straight, Wilt thou stay me if I go seek the way thither myself? He rose up from the ground with a pale face full of anger as well as grief, and caught her by the wrists and said, scowling the while: Tell me now which of them it is; is it the stupid oaf Baudoin, or the light fool Hugh, or the dull pedant Arthur? But it matters not; for I know, and all the country-side knows, that they be vowed, each man of them, to his own woman; and if they find not the women themselves, such dolts they are, that they will ever be worshipping the mere shadows of them, and turn away from flesh and blood, were it the fairest in the world, as thou art, as thou art.