"You could not hide that from her."
Then I fell silent, for I liked not this subject at any time--still less from Uldra. And I think that she saw that I was displeased at her questioning, for after a little while she said shyly:
"I think that I have asked you too closely about your affairs. Forgive me--women are anxious about such matters."
"It is a trouble to me, lady," I said, hardening my heart lest I should say too much; "but I can see no further than the coming warfare. When that is ended there will be time for me to think more thereof. But, as I have said, I believe that Hertha wishes that she were not bound."
Now I had almost said "even as I wish," but I stopped in time.
"Now, whether that is so or not, she should think well of you for your faith kept to her," Uldra said, and there was a little shake in her voice as of tears close at hand.
Then I knew that if she kept faith with me as I with her--though this was in a poor way enough--I must think well of her also. Wherefore, being obliged thus to think of one another, it would be likely enough that there would be pretence of love on both sides--and so things would be bad. Whereupon the puzzle in my mind grew more tangled yet, and I waxed savage, being so helpless.
And all the while those two words that came to me as I talked to Relf grew plainer, and seemed to ring in my ears unspoken, "Landless and luckless--landless and luckless," for that was what it all came to.
Then Uldra looked at me and saw the trouble in my face, and took what seemed to her to be the only way to help me.
"You cannot think of these matters now, Redwald," she said softly. "It is well for a warrior that he has none who is bound to him so closely that he must ever think of her. It is well for Hertha that she knows not what peril you are in--that she cannot picture you to herself--"