"There is little I can tell you," she said. "Every hour is as gold to me." "Would I had them lying in my lap." "We are young yet, Igraine." There was a joyousness in his voice that sounded to the girl like a blow struck upon empty brass, or like the laugh of a child through a ruined house. His rich optimism mocked her to the echo. "I took refuge in Winchester," she began, "with Radamanth my uncle, and lodged there many months. I watched for you and waited, but got no news of a knight named Pelleas. Week by week as my knowledge grew I began to think and think, to piece fragments together, to dream in my heart. I longed to see this Uther of whom all Britain talked. Ah, you remember the cross, Pelleas, which you left at my feet?" Pelleas smiled. She put her hand into her bosom with a little blush of pride and looked into the man's eyes. "I have it here still," she said, "where it has hung these many months. This scrap of gold first taught me to look for Uther." "Ah, Igraine, am I a king!" "My king, sire. And oh! how long it was before I could get news of you; yet in time tidings came. Then it was that I left Winchester, went on foot through the land, and hearing again of you I set out for Wales and Caerleon with rumours of war in my ears. Even from Caerleon I followed you, even to the western sea, where I saw the great battle with Gilomannius, and the noble deeds you did there for Britain." Pelleas's dark eyes flashed up to hers. A man loves to be noble in deed before the face of the woman he serves, a species of divine vanity that begets heroes. The girl's staunch faith was a thing that proffered the superbest flattery. "You are very wonderful, Igraine." "It was all for my own heart; and what greater joy could I have than to see you a king before the thundering swords of your knights." "You saw that, Igraine?" "Do you remember a hillock by the pine forest on the ridge, where you reined in after the charge and uncovered your head to the sun?" "As it were yesterday." "I stood on that hillock, Pelleas, and saw your face after many months." "Ah, Igraine, said I not you were very wonderful?" "No, no, I am only a woman, only a woman." "God give me such a wife." The word was keen as the barb of a lance. Pelleas's head was bowed over the girl's hand as he pressed his lips to the gold circlet of hair, and he did not see the frown of pain upon her face. Wife! What a mockery, what bitterness! The sky seemed black for a moment, the valley bare with the blasts of winter and the moan of tortured trees. She half choked in her throat, and her heart seemed to fail within her like a bowl that is broken. Yet there was a smile on her face when Pelleas looked up from the circlet of her hair with the pride of love in his large eyes. "What ails you, Igraine?" "A mere thought of the past." "Tell it me." "No, no, it is a nothing, a mere vapour, and it has passed. How warm your lips are to my fingers. Tell me of yourself, Pelleas."