Do you understand ?" "Yes," she answered without moving her eyes from his face.

She seemed to him again as he stood before her in the upper room of Lady Etynge's house when, in his clear aloof voice, he had told her that he had come to save her.

He had saved her then, but now it was not she who needed saving.
"There is only one man who can give Donal's child what his father would have given him," he went on.
"Who is he ?" she asked.
"I am the man," he answered, and he stood quite still.
"How--can you do it ?" she asked again.
"I can marry you," his clear, aloof voice replied.
"You!--You!--You!" she only breathed it out--but it was a cry.
Then he held up his hand as if to calm her.
"I told you in the wood that hatred was useless now and that your reason for hating me had no foundation.

I know how you will abhor what I suggest.

But it will not be as bad as it seems.