"And is it not possible I might follow her for the same reason?"
"It is not the same thing at all, Judik Kerbastiou, and you know it. In the first place you have no right to be here at all. In the next, I am Mlle. Annaik's cousin, and——"
"And I am her lover."
Alan stared at the man in sheer amaze. He spoke quietly and assuredly, nor seemed in the least degree perturbed.
"But ... but ... why, Kerbastiou, it is impossible!"
"What is impossible?"
"That Annaik could love you."
"I did not say she loved me. I said I was her lover."
"And you believe that you, a peasant, a man held in ill repute even among your fellow-peasants, a homeless woodlander, can gain the love of the daughter of your seigneur, of a woman nurtured as she has been?"