"Ah, gentle lord," she said, "will you speak no word with me?" And, in having said so much, because she had spoken before he had, she had said too much for manners, and she hung her head and trembled, for she was a very proud woman.
He looked at her with stern and affrighting eyes.
"Ah, gentle lady," he said, "you are plighted to my false brother."
"No! No!" she said, "not with my will. Would you believe I am in a tale against you, with your false sisters?"
He raised his voice till it was like the harsh bark of the male seal; his eyes glowed with hatred.
"Gentle lady," he cried out, "ye should have known!"
The sight of this lady had been to him a sudden weariness, like the sound of a story heard over and over again. And hot anger and hatred had risen violently in his heart when she spoke.
But then he perceived her anguished face, the corners of the proud lips drawn down and the features pale like alabaster. And he remembered that all things, to pursue a fair course, must go on as they before would have gone—even all things to the end. So that, although his heart was weary for the lady of the doves and sparrows, he said:
"Ah, gentle lady, I believe you. I remember me. My false brother was inside these pot-lids. You could do no otherwise. All these things shall be set in order. We will sue to the Pope. So it shall be." He could not easily find words; that was very difficult speaking for him; for still this lady was wearisome beyond endurance to him, because of the lady of the doves and sparrows. But he would not let her see this, for he knew she was a loyal and dutiful friend to him, and he must take her to wife when he had his Castle again and the dispensation of our Father that is in Rome. And indeed she fell upon her knees before him there in the stairway:
"Gentle lord, my master and my love," she said, "I smote your false brother on the mouth in that day. And all my lands are yours and my towers of Glororem and on Wearside; and all my red gold and all my jewels of price. And all my men-at-arms are yours, to the number of eight score, and two esquires; and all my bondsmen that can bear bows, and my rough pikemen...."