"Well--have you forgotten your vow of last Yuletide?"
"Not in the least. Would you have me do so? For that were somewhat hard."
"No--but yes, in a way."
There she stopped for a moment, and I waited for her to go on, not having any very clear notion of what was to come. She turned away from me somewhat, letting her fingers play over one of the tall horns on the table, when she spoke again.
"It has been in my mind that you--that maybe you thought that I have been hard on you--in ways, since we spoke in the orchard."
So that was what troubled her, but I did not see why she should have spoken of it, seeing that a lady has no need at all to justify her ways in such a matter, surely.
"No," I answered, "that I never thought. If my vow displeased you, or maybe rather if I displeased you thereafter, I had no reason to blame any one but myself for the way in which it was needful that I should be shewn that so it was. It was just the best thing for me, for it cured me of divers kinds of foolishnesses."
"That is what I would have heard you say," she said with a light-hearted laugh enough, while her face cleared. "Now I can say what I will. Do you know that you have kept your vow to the full already?"
"Not at all. There are long years before you yet, as one may hope."
"Ay, Oswald, and through you those years seem bright to look forward to. See, through you has come Erpwald, and now you have kept his life for me at risk of your own. All my life long I shall thank you for those two things. Surely your vow is fulfilled, for this will be lifelong service. There is more that I would say to you, but I cannot."