I had a curious sensation--I saw myself suddenly a stalwart savage,
strangely attired for war, near a hut in a forest clearing. I was going
away somewhere; there were other huts at hand; there was a fire, in the
side of a mound, where some women seemed to be cooking something and
wrangling over it; the smoke went up into the still air. A child came
out of the hut, and ran to me. I bent down and kissed it, and it clung
to me. I was sorry, in a dim way, to be going out--for I saw other
figures armed too, standing about the clearing. There was to be fighting
that day, and though I wished to fight, I thought I might not return.
But the mind of myself, as I discerned it, was full of hurtful, cruel,
rapacious thoughts, and I was sad to think that this could ever have
been I.

"It is not very nice," said Amroth with a smile; "one does not care to
revive that! You were young then, and had much before you."

Another picture flashed into the mind. Was it true? I was a woman, it
seemed, looking out of a window on the street in a town with high, dark
houses, strongly built of stone: there was a towered gate at a little
distance, with some figures drawing up sacks with a pulley to a door in
the gate. A man came up behind me, pulled me roughly back, and spoke
angrily; I answered him fiercely and shrilly. The room I was in seemed
to be a shop or store; there were barrels of wine, and bags of corn. I
felt that I was busy and anxious--it was not a pleasant retrospect.

"Yet you were better then," said Amroth "you thought little of your
drudgery, and much of your children."

Yes, I had had children, I saw. Their names and appearance floated
before me. I had loved them tenderly. Had they passed out of my life? I