The Wanderer laughed lightly.  It was years since he had laughed, until this friendship had begun.

“What can I say?” he asked.  “If you, the woman, acknowledge yourself vulnerable, how can I, the man, be so discourteous as to assure you that I am proof?  And yet, I feel that there is no danger for either of us.”

“You are still sure?”

“And if there were, what harm would be done?” he laughed again.  “We have no plighted word to break, and I, at least, am singularly heart free.  The world would not come to an untimely end if we loved each other.  Indeed, the world would have nothing to say about it.”

“To me, it would not,” said Unorna, looking down at her clasped hands.  “But to you—­what would the world say, if it learned that you were in love with Unorna, that you were married to the Witch?”

“The world?  What is the world to me, or what am I to it?  What is my world?  If it is anything, it consists of a score of men and women who chance to be spending their allotted time on earth in that corner of the globe in which I was born, who saw me grow to manhood, and who most inconsequently arrogate to themselves the privilege of criticising my actions, as they criticise each other’s; who say loudly that this is right and that is wrong, and who will be gathered in due time to their insignificant fathers with their own insignificance thick upon them, as is meet and just.  If that is the world I am not afraid of its judgments in the very improbable case of my falling in love with you.”

Unorna shook her head.  There was a momentary relief in discussing the consequences of a love not yet born in him.

“That would not be all,” she said.  “You have a country, you have a home, you have obligations—­you have all those things which I have not.”

“And not one of those which you have.”

She glanced at him again, for there was a truth in the words which hurt her.  Love, at least, was hers in abundance, and he had it not.

“How foolish it is to talk like this!” she exclaimed.  “After all, when people love, they care very little what the world says.  If I loved any one”—­she tried to laugh carelessly—­“I am sure I should be indifferent to everything or every one else.”

“I am sure you would be,” assented the Wanderer.

“Why?” She turned rather suddenly upon him.  “Why are you sure?”

“In the first place because you say so, and secondly because you have the kind of nature which is above common opinion.”

“And what kind of nature may that be?”

“Enthusiastic, passionate, brave.”

“Have I so many good qualities?”

“I am always telling you so.”

“Does it give you pleasure to tell me what you think of me?”

“Does it pain you to hear it?” asked the Wanderer, somewhat surprised at the uncertainty of her temper, and involuntarily curious as to the cause of the disturbance.