So wore autumn into winter, and the frost came, and the snow,
with prodigious winds from out of the mountains:
yet was not the weather so hard but that they might go forth
most days, and come to no hurt if they were wary of the drifts;
and forsooth needs must they go abroad to take venison
for their livelihood.
So the winter wore also amidst sweet speech and friendliness betwixt the two,
and they lived still as dear friends, and not as lovers.
Seldom they spoke of the Quest, for it seemed to them now a matter
over great for speech. But now they were grown so familiar each
to each that Ursula took heart to tell Ralph more of the tidings
of Utterbol, for now the shame and grief of her bondage there was but
as a story told of another, so far away seemed that time from this.
But so grievous was her tale that Ralph grew grim thereover, and he said:
"By St. Nicholas! it were a good deed, once we are past the mountains again,
to ride to Utterbol and drag that swine and wittol from his hall
and slay him, and give his folk a good day. But then there is thou,
my friend, and how shall I draw thee into deadly strife?"
"Nay," she said, "whereso thou ridest thither will I, and one fate shall lie
on us both. We will think thereof and ask the Sage of it when we return.
Who knows what shall have befallen then? Remember the lighting of the candle
of Utterbol that we saw from the Rock-sea, and the boding thereof.
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