She went out hurriedly, and the prince, full of new-born hopes mingled with depressing anxieties, went away into the neighbouring woods to meditate—for, in the haste of her departure, Hafrydda had neglected to tell him where Branwen was to be found, and he shrank from mentioning her name to any one else.
But accident—as we call it—sometimes brings about what the most laboured design fails to accomplish.
Owing to a feeling of anxiety which she could not shake off, Branwen had gone out that evening to cool her fevered brow in the woods, just a few minutes before the prince entered them. It was a strange coincidence; but are not all coincidences strange?
Seating herself on a fallen tree she cast up her eyes towards the sky where a solitary star, like a beacon of hope, was beginning to twinkle. She had not been there more than a few minutes when a rustle in the neighbouring thicket startled her. Almost before she had time to look round the prince stood before her. She trembled, for now she felt that the decisive hour had come—whether for good or evil.
Seating himself beside her, the prince took one of her hands in his and looked steadily into her downcast face.
“Corm— Bran—” he began, and stopped.
She looked up.
“Branwen,” he said, in a low, calm voice, “will it pain you very much to know that I am glad—inexpressibly glad—that there is no youth Cormac in all the wide world?”
Whether she was pained or not the girl did not say, but there was a language in her eyes which induced Bladud to slip his disengaged arm round—well, well, there are some things more easily conceived than described. She seemed about to speak, but Bladud stopped her mouth—how, we need not tell—not rudely, you may be sure—suffice to say that when the moon arose an hour later, and looked down into the forest that evening she saw the prince and Branwen still seated, hand in hand, on the fallen tree, gazing in rapt attention at the stars.