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Rh to marry, all he wanted to do was to remove completely from her mind the idea that there was any possibility of his ever marrying her. When he said that to her, she said a certain thing to him. He was not at all prepared for the remark she made, but he did not pay much attention to it at the time. This is what she said: "If it is a noble bond for you, it ought to be a noble bond for me." He began to ask himself now what was the meaning she had for those words, or whether it was possible that she had taken a bond upon herself, before God, never to marry.

Thoughts of that sort, and things of that sort, and meditations of that sort were running through his mind constantly during his recovery. But though they caused him a good deal of anxiety and vexation, and mental puzzling, they did not put any check upon his convalescence. He continued to put on flesh and to become strong and vigorous, until people were saying that he would turn out better and firmer and more substantially healthy than he had ever been before the illness came upon him.

Just a month after he had left his bed, there came to him, up from the town, on horseback, the King's Captain, and twenty horsemen along with him. Each man had on his silk cloak and his regimental cap, and his long sword down by the flank of his horse, and his short sword in his belt, and his fine long ashen spear standing up high, with its long slender head of bright, sharp steel, shining and flashing in the sun, and the silk ribbons dancing in the wind, tied, between the iron and the wood,