‘Yea,’ she said; but he saw how the tears ran out of her eyes and wetted the bosom of her kirtle, and she hung her head for shame of her grief. And Gold-mane was all abashed, and had no word to say; for he knew that no word of his might comfort her; and he deemed it ill done to stay there and behold her sorrow; and he knew not how to get him gone, and be glad elsewhere, and leave her alone.
Then, as if she had read his thought, she looked up at him and said smiling a little amidst of her tears:
‘I bid thee stay by me till the flood is over; for I have yet a word to say to thee.’
So he stood there gazing down on the grass in his turn, and not daring to raise his eyes to her face, and the minutes seemed long to him: till at last she said in a voice scarcely yet clear of weeping:
‘Wilt thou say anything to me, and tell me what thou hast done, and why, and what thou deemest will come of it?’
He said: ‘I will tell the truth as I know it, because thou askest it of me, and not because I would excuse myself before thee. What have I done? Yesterday I plighted my troth to wed the woman that I met last autumn in the wood. And why? I wot not why, but that I longed for her. Yet I must tell thee that it seemed to me, and yet seemeth, that I might do no otherwise—that there was nothing else in the world for me to do. What do I deem will come of it, sayest thou? This, that we shall be happy together, she and I, till the day of our death.’
She said: ‘And even so long shall I be sorry: so far are we sundered now. Alas! who looked for it? And whither shall I turn to now?’
Said Gold-mane: ‘She bade me tell thee that to-morrow is a new day: meseemeth I know her meaning.’
‘No word of hers hath any meaning to me,’ said the Bride.
‘Nay,’ said he, ‘but hast thou not heard these rumours of war that are in the Dale? Shall not these things avail thee? Much may grow out of them; and thou with the mighty heart, so faithful and compassionate!’