"Yes—yes, don't—don't look at me like that, Peter—and—oh, good night!—foolish boy!"
"I am—twenty-five, Charmian!" But as she turned away I saw that there were tears in her eyes.
Dressed as I was, I lay down upon my bed, and, burying my head in the pillow, groaned, for my pain was very sore; indeed I was to feel the effects of George's fist for many a day to come, and it seems to me now that much of the morbid imaginings, the nightly horrors, and black despair, that I endured in the time which immediately followed, was chiefly owing to that terrible blow upon the head.
CHAPTER XXI
OF THE OPENING OF THE DOOR, AND HOW CHARMIAN BLEW OUT THE LIGHT
He bestrode a powerful black charger, and his armor glittered through the green. And, as he rode beneath the leafy arches of the wood, he lifted up his voice, and sang, and the song was mournful, and of a plaintive seeming, and rang loud behind his visor-bars; therefore, as I sat beside the freshet, I hearkened to his song:
"For her love I carke, and care,
For her love I droop, and dare,
For her love my bliss is bare.
And I wax wan!"
Forth he rode from the shadowy woodland, pacing very solemn and slow; and thrice he struck his iron hand upon his iron breast.
"For her love, in sleep I slake,
For her love, all night I wake,
For her love, I mourning make
More than any man!"
Now, being come to where I sat beside the brook, he checked his horse, and gazed full long upon me, and his eyes shone from the gloom of his helmet.