In the end the girl spoke first, saying like a child having a range of but few words, “You are happy now, my hero?”
“Too happy—I almost fear to wake and find that I've been dreaming.”
She kissed him.
“Yes, it's real,” he answered; “in dreams happiness is not so positive as this. You did not doubt?” he queried.
“Never.”
“You would have waited?”
“Forever.”
“And now—and now, we must still wait.”
“Not forever.”
They talked of the wonderful necromancy the gods had used to set their lives to the sweet music of happiness. How Lauzanne the Despised had saved Ringwood to her father; how he had won Alan's supposed price of redemption for Mortimer; how he had stood sturdy and true to the girl of much faith and all gentleness. And the room became a crypt of confessional when she, in penitence, told of her ride on the gallant Chestnut.