...Master, may I ask thee a question?" "Ask on," said Ralph.
Said Bull: "The pair of beads about thy neck, whence came they?"
"They were the gift of a dear friend," said Ralph. "A woman?"
quoth Bull. "Yea," said Ralph.
"Now is this strange," said Bull, "and I wot not what it may betoken,
but this same woman had about her neck a pair of beads as like to thine
as if they had been the very same: did this woman give thee the beads?
For I will say this of thee, master, that thou art well nigh as likely
a man as she is a woman."
Ralph sighed, for this talk of the woman and the beads brought all
the story into his mind, so that it was as if he saw it adoing again:
the Lady of the Wildwood led along to death before he delivered her,
and their flight together from the Water of the Oak, and that murder
of her in the desert. And betwixt the diverse deeds of the day
this had of late become somewhat dim to him. Yet after his grief
came joy that this man also had seen the damsel, whom his dream
of the night had called Dorothea, and that he knew of her captors;
wherefore by his means he might come on her and deliver her.
Now he spake aloud: "Nay, it was not she that gave them to me,
but yet were I fain to find this woman that thou sawest;
for I look to meet a friend whenas I meet her. So tell me,
dost thou think that I may cheapen her of thy kinsman?"
Bull shook his head, and said: "It may be: or it may be that he hath
already sold her to one who heedeth not treasure so much as fair flesh;
and fair is hers beyond most.
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