But he thought not of her, but of himself and how kind she was to him.

But after a while he mastered his passion and began, and told her all he had done and suffered.

Long was the tale in the telling, for it was sweet to him to lay before her both his grief and his hope.

She let him talk on, and whiles she listened to him, and whiles, not, but all the time she gazed on him, yet sometimes askance, as if she were ashamed.

As for him, he saw her face how fair and lovely she was, yet was there little longing in his heart for her, more than for one of the painted women on the wall, for as kind and as dear as he deemed her.
When he had done, she kept silence a while, but at last she enforced her, and spake: "Sad it is for the mother that bore thee that thou art not in her house, wherein all things would be kind and familiar to thee.