On which of you she looks with the more favour I do not know, and be you content to remain in ignorance of what a father does not think it wise to seek to learn.

A maid's heart is her own, and her future lies in the hand of God and His saints, where let it bide, say I.Now we have done with all this business.
Rosamund, dismiss your knights, and be you all three brothers and sister once more till this time two years, when those who live will find an answer to the riddle." So Rosamund came forward, and without a word gave her right hand to Godwin and her left to Wulf, and suffered that they should press their lips upon them.

So for a while this was the end of their asking of her in marriage.
The brethren left the solar side by side as they had come into it, but changed men in a sense, for now their lives were afire with a great purpose, which bade them dare and do and win.

Yet they were lighter-hearted than when they entered there, since at least neither had been scorned, while both had hope, and all the future, which the young so seldom fear, lay before them.
As they descended the steps their eyes fell upon the figure of a tall man clad in a pilgrim's cape, hood and low-crowned hat, of which the front was bent upwards and laced, who carried in his hand a palmer's staff, and about his waist the scrip and water-bottle.
"What do you seek, holy palmer ?" asked Godwin, coming towards him.

"A night's lodging in my uncle's house ?" The man bowed; then, fixing on him a pair of beadlike brown eyes, which reminded Godwin of some he had seen, he knew not when or where, answered in the humble voice affected by his class: "Even so, most noble knight.