I nodded.
“And you are journeying to the west to join the Hill-folk?”
I smiled as I looked into her deep and anxious eyes.
“Again you have rightly divined,” I said.
“And what stipend are ye to get from them?”
“I am to have no stipend. It has not been mentioned between us.”
“O Quintin!” she cried suddenly, her eyes growing ever larger and darker, till the pupil seemed to invade the iris and swallow it up.
But though I waited for her to speak further she said nothing more.
So I went on to tell her how I was going to the west to spend my life among the poor folk there who had been so long without a shepherd.
“And would you”—she paused—“would you leave us all?”