"I was mad, Ygerne!" he broke in contritely.
"Or are we mad now?" she laughed, a vague hint of trouble on her lips. "You say we don't know much of each other. It is worse than just that. What little I know of you is not pretty knowledge. What little I have told you of myself, what you have seen of my companions here, what you have guessed, is hardly the sort of thing to make you choose me, is it? You called me adventuress more than once. Are you sure now that I am not what you named me?"
"I am sure," he answered steadily, his faith in his idol strong upon him. "You are a sweet woman and a true, Ygerne. And if you weren't … why, just so you loved me I should not care!"
So they passed from matters vital to mere lovers' talk that was none the less vital to them. Drennen, having long lived a starving existence, his soul pent up within his own self, opened his heart to her and poured out the thoughts which not even to himself had he hitherto acknowledged. He told of his old life in the cities; of the shame and disgrace that had driven him an alien into a sterner land where the names of men meant less than the might and cunning of their right hands; of his restless life leading him up and down upon a trail of flint; of disappointment and disillusion encountered on every hand until all of the old hopes and kindly thoughts were stripped from him; of the evil days which had turned sour within him the milk of human kindness.
Two things alone he would not talk of. He laughed at her, a ringing, boyish laugh when she mentioned them, one after the other. The first was what lay back in her own life, the thing which had driven her here.
"Don't you want me to tell you of that?" she had asked, looking at him swiftly.
"No," he had answered. "Not now. When we are married, Ygerne, then if you want to tell me I want to hear."
His faith in her was perfect, that was all. He wanted her to know that it was and took this method of telling her.
The other matter was his gold.
"You haven't told me of your discovery," she reminded him, again after a brief, keen scrutiny. "Aren't you going to tell me … David?"