"I must go to him--let me go--let me go back!" But his hands were on her shoulders in an instant, and she was in a vise, forced back to her seat.
"How dare you touch me!" she cried, in the furious anger of a woman beside herself with grief.

"How dare you lay hands on me!" she repeated in a rising key, but struggling in vain against his greater strength.
"You would have died, if I had left you there," answered the jester.
"And besides, the people will come soon, and they would have found you there, lying on his body, and your good name would have gone forever." "My name! What does a name matter?
Or anything?
Oh, let me go! No one must touch him--no hands that do not love him must come near him--let me get up--let me go in again!" She tried to force the dwarf from her--she would have struck him, crushed him, thrown him from the terrace, if she could.

She was strong, too, in her grief; but his vast arms were like iron bars, growing from his misshapen body.

His face was very grave and kind, and his eyes more tender than they had ever been in his life.
"No," he said gently.

"You must not go.