She left the window, and went and stood by the fire, with her back to the man. "Brastias," she said, quite softly. The man looked up from the scroll, and seemed ill at ease. "I trust your duty is pleasant to you?" Brastias's eyelids flickered nervously, and he cleared his throat. "May the Virgin witness," he said, "I have no love of the task." "My Lord Gorlois trusts you?" "He has said so, madame." "And am I not his wife?" Brastias put the scroll aside with a constrained deliberation. He felt himself wholly in the wrong, as he always did before a woman, and his wit ran clumsily on such occasions. It had needed but the observation of a child to mark the gulf between Gorlois and his wife. Gorlois had spoken few words on the matter, had given commands and nothing more. Brastias was not the man to tamper officiously with the confidences of others. He thought much, said little, and bided quiet for Igraine to speak. She stood half-turned towards the fire, with her face in profile, and her hands hanging limply at her side. Looking for all the world like a penitent, she spoke with a certain unconscious pathos, as though she touched on a matter that was heavy upon her heart. "Brastias, I may call you a friend?" "I trust so, madame." "Then there is no reason for me to be backward in speaking of the truth?" The man bowed and said nothing. "Come then, Brastias, tell me honestly, have I seemed to you like a woman who loved her husband?" The girl's blue eyes were staring hard into the man's grey ones. There was little chance of prevarication before so blunt a question, and Brastias's courtesy, like Balaam's ass, refused to deny the scrutiny of truth. Igraine could read the man's face like a piece of blazened parchment. "Never fear to be frank," she said; "your belief hangs on your face like an alphabet, and that shows me how much you know of a woman's heart." "Pardon me, madame." "Never blush, man, you would have said that I had as little love for Gorlois as for the dirtiest beggar in Caerleon?" Brastias frowned mildly and agreed with her, remembering as he did a certain wild scene on the battlements of Tintagel. "And doubtless you would say that it pained me not a whit to see Gorlois my lord ride out from Caerleon into the wilds of Wales?" There was such reproach in her voice that Brastias fell into confusion before her eyes, reddened, and began to excuse himself. "Your ladyship's behaviour," he said, with an ingenuous look and an intense striving after propitiation,--"your ladyship's behaviour would hardly warrant me in believing that my Lord Gorlois was vastly dear to you. And, pardon me, a woman does not seek to run away from her husband." "You insinuate--" Brastias felt himself in the mire, and groaned in spirit. "Madame, I would say--" "Yes, yes, I understand you." "Give me leave--" "Not another word."