be that
he was surprised,--was it displeasure? Her words came a little more
swiftly, a tremor of passionate pleading thrilling through them.

"You need not think that I did it willingly, lord. Very roughly has
fortune handled me. The reason I first came into camp-life was that I
trusted someone too much, knowing no more of the world than my father's
house. And after the bonds were laid on me, it was not easy to rule
matters. The helplessness of a woman is before the eyes of all people--"

His words broke through hers: "No more, I beseech you!" His voice was
broken and unsteady as she had never known it. "Who am I that I should
blame you? Do not think me so--so despisable! If unknowingly I have done
you any wrong when I owe you--" He paused and she guessed that it had
swept over him afresh how much he did owe her. Perhaps also how much he
had promised to pay?

"There will be no recompense that you can ask at my hands which I shall
not be glad to give," he had said; and she had checked him, bidding him
wait to see if he would have more than pity. If he should have no more!
She dared not look at him but she felt that he opened his lips to speak,
then turned away, stifling a groan. It seemed to her that her breath
ceased while she waited, and her hands tightened on the coral chain so
that suddenly it burst and scattered the beads like rosy symbols of her
hopes. If he should have no more!

At last he turned and came a step nearer her, courtly and noble as he
had always been. "I owe to you everything I have, even life itself," he
said, "and I offer them all in payment of the debt. May I ask the King
to give you to me for my wife?"

In its infinite gentleness, his voice was almost tender. For as long
as the space between one breath and the next, her spirit leaped up and
stretched out its arms to its joy; but she stayed it on the threshold of
utterance to look fearfully into his face, whose every shade was open to
her as the day. Looking into his eyes, she knew that it was no more than
pity. He guessed that she loved him and he pitied her; but he could not
forgive her unmaidenliness, he could not love her.

Slowly and quite easily she felt her heart die in her breast, leaving
only the shell, the husk, of what had been Randalin, Frode's daughter.
Her first thought Was a vague wonder that after it she could breathe and
move as if she were still alive. Her next, a piteous desire to escape
from him while she had this strength