But Hugo interrupted her and said:
"Peace! Ye wit not what ye ask. Shall I starve whom I love,
to win a gentle death? I wend thou knewest me better."
"Well," I said, "I can't quite make this out. It is a puzzle. Now--"
"Ah, dear my lord, an ye will but persuade him! Consider how
these his tortures wound me! Oh, and he will not speak!--whereas,
the healing, the solace that lie in a blessed swift death--"
"What _are_ you maundering about? He's going out from here a free
man and whole--he's not going to die."
The man's white face lit up, and the woman flung herself at me
in a most surprising explosion of joy, and cried out:
"He is saved!--for it is the king's word by the mouth of the king's
servant--Arthur, the king whose word is gold!"
"Well, then you do believe I can be trusted, after all. Why
didn't you before?"
"Who doubted? Not I, indeed; and not she."
"Well, why wouldn't you tell me your story, then?"
"Ye had made no promise; else had it been otherwise."
"I see, I see.... And yet I believe I don't quite see, after all.
You stood the torture and refused to confess; which shows plain
enough to even the dullest understanding that you had nothing
to confess--"
"I, my lord? How so? It was I that killed the deer!"
"You _did_? Oh, dear, this is the most mixed-up business that ever--"
"Dear lord, I begged him on my knees to confess, but--"
"You _did_! It gets thicker and thicker.
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