God was very good to her, and sent her in her hour of need this great consolation--a consolation indeed that must have served to efface whatever sorrow could have beset her.
"Why then, sweet lady, is my task that I had feared to find all fraught with difficulty, grown easy indeed." And hearing him pause: "What task is that, Sir Crispin ?" she asked, intent on helping him.
He did not reply at once.

He found it difficult to devise an answer.
To tell her brutally that he was come to bear her away, willing or unwilling, on behalf of another, was not easy.

Indeed, it was impossible, and he was glad that inclinations in her which he had little dreamt of, put the necessity aside.
"My task, Mistress Cynthia, is to bear you hence.

To ask you to resign this peaceful life, this quiet home in a little corner of the world, and to go forth to bear life's hardships with one who, whatever be his shortcomings, has the all-redeeming virtue of loving you beyond aught else in life." He gazed intently at her as he spoke, and her eyes fell before his glance.

He noted the warm, red blood suffusing her cheeks, her brow, her very neck; and he could have laughed aloud for joy at finding so simple that which he had feared would prove so hard.