Again were they silent till she said: I would that I had heard thee crossing the brook. But the wood-wife bade me look for thee no earlier than to-morrow; else had I time enough; and I would have made the house trim with the new green boughs, and dighted our bed with rose blooms; and I would have done on me my shining gown that the wood-wife gave me. For indeed she was but clad in her scanty smock and nought else. But he laid his head on her bosom and kissed her all about, and said: Nay, my own love, it is well, it is better. And she murmured over him: O friend, my dear, think not that I had will to hide me from thee. All that is here of me is thine, and thine, and thine. And she took his hand and they arose together, and she said: O friend, I fled from thee once and left thee lonely of me because I deemed need drave me to it; and I feared the strife of friends, and confusion and tangle. Now if thou wilt avenge thee on me thou mayest, for I am in thy power. Yet will I ask thee what need will drive thee to leave me lonely? He said: The need of death. But she said: Mayhappen we shall lie together then, as here to-night we shall lie. CHAPTER XXVIII. FAIR DAYS IN THE HOUSE OF LOVE. On the morrow it was sweet times betwixt those twain, and what was hard and fierce of their love they seemed to have put behind them. A dear joy it was to Birdalone that day to busy herself about the housekeeping, and to provide whatsoever seemed now, or had seemed to her in her early days, to be dainties of their meadow and woodland husbandry, as cream and junkets and wood-fruit and honey, and fine bread made for that very occasion.