if a sweet
dream had come across the void of his gloom, and then at last the gloom
and the dread and the deadness left him, and he knew that his friend
and fellow was talking to him, and that he sat by her knee to knee, and
the sweetness of her savoured in his nostrils as she leaned her face
toward him, and he knew himself for what he was; and yet for memory of
that past horror, and the sweetness of his friend and what not else, he
fell a-weeping. But Ursula bestirred herself and brought out food from
her wallet, and sat down beside him again, and he wiped the tears from
his eyes and laughed, and chid himself for being as a child in the
dark, and then they ate and drank together in that dusk nook of the
wilderness. And now was he happy and his tongue was loosed, and he
fell to telling her many things of Upmeads, and of the tale of his
forefathers, and of his old loves and his friends, till life and death
seemed to him as they had seemed of time past in the merry land of his
birth. So there anon they fell asleep for weariness, and no dreams of
terror beset their slumbers.

CHAPTER 11

They Come to the Vale of Sweet Chestnuts

When they went on their way next morning they found little change in
the pass, and they rode the dread highway daylong, and it was still the
same: so they rested a little before nightfall at a place where there
was water running out of the rocks, but naught else for their avail.
Ralph was merry and helpful and filled water from the runnel, and
wrought what he might to make the lodging meet; and as they ate and
rested he said to Ursula: "Last night it was thou that beguiled me of
my gloom, yet thereafter till we slept it was my voice for the more
part, and not thine, that was heard in the wilderness. Now to-night it
shall be otherwise, and I will but ask a question of thee, and hearken
to the sweetness of thy voice."

She laughed a little and very sweetly, and she said: "Forsooth, dear
friend, I spoke to thee that I might hear thy voice for the more part,
and not mine, that was heard in the desert; but when I heard thee, I
deemed that the world was yet alive for us to come back to."

He was silent awhile, for his heart was pierced with the sweetness of
her speech, and he had fain have spoken back as sweetly as a man might;
yet he could not because he feared her somewhat, lest she should turn
cold to him; therefore himseemed that he spoke roughly, as he said:
"Nevertheless, my friend,