Gersonde stood in the garden before the embroidering women.
“Whence do you come, and where do you go, and what is your name?” questioned the Abbess.
“Please you, I know many times less than all that,” said Gersonde. “But I lately left a hut in the forest, and I hope erelong to find a band of Entertainers into which I was born, and I am called Gersonde the soothsayer.”
“Soothsay, then,” said the Abbess. And, “Ah, Reverend Mother,” cried Ermengarde, “if she could tell me—”
“I cannot tell sooth every day,” said Gersonde. “I would that I could!”
“Look at this lady,” said the Abbess, who was good-natured because she was fearless. “Tell her if she shall find a strong champion.”
Gersonde obeyed. “Her champion is in herself.”
“O God, I am lost!” cried Ermengarde, and covered her forehead with her hands.
“No, no, you are not lost,” said the soothsayer. “You are not lost—you are not lost. Such little words go little ways!”
“Say more,” said the Abbess. “You soothsay darkly.”