“Come now, tell me how the year has passed.”
Igraine held his hand in hers and began to twist her hair about his wrist into a bracelet of gold. Her eyes faltered from his, and were hot and heavy with an inward misery of thought. The man’s words wounded her at every turn, and in his innocence he shook her happiness as a wind shakes a tree.
“There is little I can tell you,” she said.
“Every hour is as gold to me.”
“Would I had them lying in my lap.”
“We are young yet, Igraine.”
There was a joyousness in his voice that sounded to the girl like a blow struck upon empty brass, or like the laugh of a child through a ruined house. His rich optimism mocked her to the echo.
“I took refuge in Winchester,” she began, “with Radamanth my uncle, and lodged there many months. I watched for you and waited, but got no news of a knight named Pelleas. Week by week as my knowledge grew I began to think and think, to piece fragments together, to dream in my heart. I longed to see this Uther of whom all Britain talked. Ah, you remember the cross, Pelleas, which you left at my feet?”
Pelleas smiled. She put her hand into her bosom with a little blush of pride and looked into the man’s eyes.
“I have it here still,” she said, “where it has hung these many months. This scrap of gold first taught me to look for Uther.”