“Tell you your tale first, Rosamund,” said Godwin.
She told it as shortly as she could, they listening without a word.
Then Godwin spoke and told her theirs. Rosamund heard it, and asked a question almost in a whisper.
“Why does that beautiful dark-eyed woman befriend you?”
“I do not know,” answered Godwin, “unless it is because of the accident of my having saved her from the lion.”
Rosamund looked at him and smiled a little, and Wulf smiled also. Then she said:
“Blessings be on that lion and all its tribe! I pray that she may not soon forget the deed, for it seems that our lives hang upon her favour. How strange is this story, and how desperate our case! How strange also that you should have come on hither against her counsel, which, seeing what we have, I think was honest?”
“We were led,” answered Godwin. “Your father had wisdom at his death, and saw what we could not see.”
“Ay,” added Wulf, “but I would that it had been into some other place, for I fear this lord Al-je-bal at whose nod men hurl themselves to death.”
“He is hateful,” answered Rosamund, with a shudder; “worse even than the knight Lozelle; and when he fixes his eyes on me, my heart grows sick. Oh! that we could escape this place!”