“No? Yet, good sir, since you will keep me here I must pray for you, even though my prayers may be of no avail.”
He came a step forward, looking at her steadfastly.
“Always riddles!”
She returned his look as steadfastly.
“You are young, Messire Fulk, and it is hard that a young man should come to a sudden end.”
“You are for making a ghost out of a sheet and a candle!”
Her eyes flashed.
“Not so. But I have a kind of pity for that stiff neck of yours. Not very often have I found such stiffness in a man, and in a young man! But go to, now, I talk to a winter frost. Yet it may so fall out that you shall have cause to thank me.”
He stood at gaze, and her face was the crystal into which he looked.
“For your prayers—if they are honest—I thank you,” he said. “I will stand on guard against the mischances that a woman’s prayers may hint at.”