‘And otherwise art thou merry at heart?’
‘Yea, indeed,’ said she; ‘yet thou wilt not find it hard to deem that I am sorry of the sundering betwixt me and Burgdale.’
Again was he silent, and said in a while: ‘Dost thou deem that I wrought that sundering?’
She smiled kindly on him and said: ‘Gold-mane, my playmate, thou art become a mighty warrior and a great chief; but thou art not so mighty as that. Many things lay behind the sundering which were neither thou nor I.’
‘Yet,’ said he, ‘it was but such a little time agone that all things seemed so sure; and we—to both of us was the outlook happy.’
‘Let it be happy still,’ she said, ‘now begrudging is gone. Belike the sundering came because we were so sure, and had no defence against the wearing of the days; even as it fareth with a folk that hath no foes.’
He smiled and said: ‘Even as it hath befallen thy folk, O Bride, a while ago.’
She reddened, and reached her hand to him, and he took it and held it, and said: ‘Shall I see thee again as the days wear?’
Said she: ‘O chieftain of the Folk, thou shalt have much to do in Burgdale, and the way is long. Yet would I have thee see my children. Forget not the token on my hand which thou holdest. But now get thee to thy folk with no more words; for after all, playmate, the sundering is grievous to me, and I would not spin out the time thereof. Farewell!’
He said no more, but stooped down and kissed her lips, and then turned from her, and took his ways to the head of the Host, and fell to asking and answering, and bidding and arraying; and in a little time was his heart dancing with joy to think of the days that lay before him, wherein now all seemed happy.