The Bride stayed scarce longer than gave him time to note all this; but he deemed that she was weeping, though he could not rightly see her face; for her shoulders heaved, and she hung her face adown and put up her hands to it. But now she went a little higher up the stream, where the water was shallower, and waded the stream and went up over the meadow, still weeping, as he deemed, and went between the black-thorn bushes, and sat her down on the grassy bank with her back to the chestnut trees.
Folk-might was ashamed to have seen her weeping, and was half-minded to turn him back again at once; but love constrained him, and he said to himself, ‘Where shall I see her again privily if I pass by this time and place?’ So he waited a little till he deemed she might have mastered the passion of tears, and then came forth from his bush, and went down to the water and crossed it, and went quietly over the meadow straight towards her. But he was not half-way across, when she lifted up her face from between her hands and beheld the man coming. She neither started nor rose up; but straightened herself as she sat, and looked right into Folk-might’s eyes as he drew near, though the tears were not dry on her cheeks.
Now he stood before her, and said: ‘Hail to the Daughter of a mighty House! Mayst thou live happy!’
She answered: ‘Hail to thee also, Guest of our Folk! Hast thou been wandering about our meadows, and happened on me perchance?’
‘Nay,’ he said; ‘I saw thee come forth from the House of the Steer, and I followed thee hither.’
She reddened a little, and knit her brow, and said:
‘Thou wilt have something to say to me?’
‘I have much to say to thee,’ he said; ‘yet it was sweet to me to behold thee, even if I might not speak with thee.’
She looked on him with her deep simple eyes, and neither reddened again, nor seemed wroth; then she said:
‘Speak what thou hast in thine heart, and I will hearken without anger whatsoever it may be; even if thou hast but to tell me of the passing folly of a mighty man, which in a month or two he will not remember for sorrow or for joy. Sit here beside me, and tell me thy thought.’