There was a current of evil eagerness running through the feeble voice.
“Your sword, my lord?”
“Pshaw! was it clean, child? Bore it no sign upon the blade?”
“There was blood on it,” said Pomona, gravely, “to a third of the length.”
The duelist gave a sigh.
“That is well,” said he, and fell once more into silence, striving to knit present and past in his mind.
After a while he shifted himself on his pillows so that he again looked on her.
Then his eyes wandered round the dark paneling, on the polished surface of which the firelight gleamed like rosy flowers. He touched the coarse sheet, the patchwork quilt, then lifted the sleeve of the homespun shirt that covered his thin arm, and gazed inquiringly from it to the quiet woman.
“How do I come here? Where am I?” queried he, imperiously.
“I brought you; you are in my house,” she answered him.