‘For whom is it?’ he cried. And his passion went out of him, and he spoke in sad measured tones: ‘I had not once dreamed of this; I had lived in our friendship, seeing no end to it. You don’t know what you have been to me, Joan. Well, here is the end. I might have foreseen it but for my blind folly. How could I dream for one moment that the daughter of the rich City knight would take aught but a passing interest in this young portionless neighbour of hers. It should be my full content to know that she hath deigned to use me to kill some idle hours. God be with you, Mistress Medley’--and he jumped to his feet. ‘Brion,’ said the girl, ‘you are very cruel. And you may sneer in your pride at my father for his riches; but it is they bestow power and authority. What he bids me do I must do, since he may command the life he gave me; yet, despite your wounding words, I would rather die than do that bidding of his which made me false to you.’ She turned away, as he stared at her; but there was a sign of that in her eyes which he had never seen there yet, and which went to his very heart. Impulsively he flung himself on his knees beside her, and put an arm about her shoulders. ‘No, you are cruel,’ she said, resisting him. But he would not be denied. ‘Dear Joan; I love you so. Think what it must have meant to me to hear you. Tell me only one thing. I will not ask you who it is. I know naught about your private matters, nor, by my troth, seek to know. This privacy of ours is passing sweet, and it is enough for me. But one thing only: tell me you do not favour this same suitor.’ She was easily coaxed. She had no real will to repel him, but allowed herself to be drawn back into his arms, where he won a lovely smile from wet eyes. ‘Become _his_ wife!’ she said, with a little catch in her breath, ‘I would liefer be a wild man’s squawk.’ Brion did not respond: for all his tragic mood, an irresistible spasm seized him. ‘What is the matter?’ she asked, surprised. ‘Are you laughing?’ He shook all through as he held her; and suddenly he gasped. ‘O, God a’ mercy, Joan--that word! Where did you learn it?’ ‘From a Mr Richard Grenville, a Border Captain, that lay once at the Chase. He spake much of savage lands across the seas, and of those that inhabit there. The wives are so called, Brion: i’faith I know they are.’ ‘O! Very well, if you know.’ ‘He told, too, of many strange things he had seen, both men and beasts; amongst others of a bird called a pelican that hath seventeen stomachs, and will feed its young, when they are starving, on its own hump.’ ‘Hump! A bird with a hump!’ ‘It is true, Brion; really it is.’ ‘I am sure it is, Joan; and I call that an unlucky bird; for methinks it might seldom happen that all the seventeen were in one agreement, unless for pain. But let that pass; and, as to the wives, why I say you shall be no wild man’s squawk, though I have to marry you myself.’ ‘Will you marry me, Brion?’