“And you knew it—and she knew it, all along. Oh, why did you agree to deceive me?”
“Nay, brother, I did not mean to deceive you—at least not at first. Neither did Branwen. I knew nothing about it till she came home, after being with you at the Swamp, and told me that she was impelled by sheer pity to follow you, intending to nurse you; thinking at first that we had let you go to die alone. Then she was caught in the woods by robbers, and she only escaped from them by putting on a boy’s dress and running away. They gave chase, however, caught her up, and, had it not been for you, would have recaptured her. The rest you know. But now, brother, I am jealous for my dear friend. She has expressed fear that, in her great pity for you, she may be thought to have acted an unwomanly part, and that you will perhaps despise her.”
“Unwomanly! despise!” exclaimed Bladud in amazement. “Hafrydda, do you regard me as a monster of ingratitude?”
“Nay, brother, that do I not. I think that you could never despise one who has felt such genuine pity for you as to risk and endure so much.”
“Hafrydda, do you think there is no stronger feeling than pity for me in the heart of Branwen?” asked Bladud in a subdued, earnest voice.
“That you must find out for yourself, brother,” answered the princess. “Yet after all, if you are only fond of Cormac, what matters the feeling that may be in the heart of Branwen? Are you in love with her already, Bladud, after so short an acquaintance?”
“In love with her!” exclaimed the prince. “There is no Cormac. There is but one woman in the wide world now—”
“That is not complimentary to your mother and myself, I fear,” interrupted his sister.
“But,” continued the prince, paying no regard to the interruption, “is there any chance—any hope—of—of—something stronger than pity being in her heart?”
“I say again, ask that of herself, Bladud; but now I think of it,” added the princess, leaping up in haste, “I am almost too late to keep an appointment with Dromas!”