' I said:
'And wherefore hast thou come to me, and what shall I give to thee?'
She said, 'I will take no gift of thee as now, for I need it not,
though hereafter I may ask a gift of thee. But I am to ask this
of thee, if thou wilt be my fellow-farer on the road thither?'
'Yea?' said I, 'and leave my love and my lord, and my kingship which
he hath given me? for this I will tell thee, that all that here is done,
is done by me.'
"'Great is thy Kingship, Lady,' said the woman, and smiled withal.
Then she sat silent a little, and said: 'When six months are worn,
it will be springtide; I will come to thee in the spring days,
and know what thy mind is then. But now I must depart.'
Quoth I: 'Glad shall I be to talk with thee again;
for though thou hast learned me much of wisdom, yet much more
I need; yea, as much as the folk here deem I have already.'
'Thou shalt have no less,' said the woman. Then she kissed my
hands and went her ways, and I sat musing still for a long while:
because for all my gains, and my love that I had been loved withal,
and the greatness that I had gotten, there was as it were a veil
of unhappiness wrapped round about my heart.
"So wore the months, and ere the winter had come befell an evil thing,
for my lord, who had loved me so, and taken me out of the wilderness,
died, and was gathered to the fathers, and there was I left alone;
for there was no fruit of my womb by him alive.
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