There for some time it rested--rested at least with the knight. But
with the lady there was far from rest, for every hour she was
watching for some favourable token which might draw them nearer, and
give opportunity for making herself known. Nearer they certainly
drew, for he often smiled at her. He liked her to wait on him, and
to beguile the weariness of his recovery by singing to him, telling
some of her store of tales, or reading to him, for books were more
plentiful at Bruges than at Sunderland, and there were even whispers
of a wonderful mode of multiplying them far more quickly than by the
scrivener's hand.
How her heart beat every time she thus ministered to him, or heard
his voice call to her, but it was all, as she could plainly see, just
as he would have spoken to Clemence, if she could have heard him, and
he evidently thought her likewise of burgher quality, and much of the
same age as the Vrow Groot. Indeed, the long toil and wear of the
past months had made her thin and haggard, and the traces of her
disaster were all the more apparent, so that no one would have
guessed her years to be eighteen.
She had taken her wedding-ring from her finger, and wore it on a
chain, within her kirtle, so as to excite no inquiry. But many a
night, ere she lay down, she looked at it, and even kissed it, as she
asked herself whether her knight would ever bid her wear it. Until
he did so her finger should never again be encircled by it.
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