She said, no longer smiling: ‘Yea surely, even so may all men do who can be called my friends—and thou art much my friend.’
He took her hand and kissed it, and held it thereafter; nor did she draw it away. The moon shone brightly on them; but by its light he could not see if she reddened, but he deemed that her face was troubled. Then he said: ‘It were better for me if I might kiss thy face, and take thee in mine arms.’
Then said she: ‘This only shall a man do with me when I long to do the like with him. And since thou art so much my friend, I will tell thee that as for this longing, I have it not. Bethink thee what a little while it is since the lack of another man’s love grieved me sorely.’
‘The time is short,’ said Folk-might, ‘if we tell up the hours thereof; but in that short space have a many things betid.’
She said: ‘Dost thou know, canst thou guess, how sorely ashamed I went amongst my people? I durst look no man in the face for the aching of mine heart, which methought all might see through my face.’
‘I knew it well,’ he said; ‘yet of me wert thou not ashamed but a little while ago, when thou didst tell me of thy grief.’
She said: ‘True it is; and thou wert kind to me. Thou didst become a dear friend to me, methought.’
‘And wilt thou hurt a dear friend?’ said he.
‘O no,’ she said, ‘if I might do otherwise. Yet how if I might not choose? Shall there be no forgiveness for me then?’
He answered nothing; and still he held her hand that strove not to be gone from his, and she cast down her eyes. Then he spake in a while: