unclean, and so use towards me?" She began to cry again, quite
silently. Prosper could hear the drips fall from her cheeks to her
breast, but no other sound. She began to moan in her trouble--"Ah, no,
no, no!" she whispered, "I would not wed with thee, I dare not wed
with thee."

"Why not?" said Prosper.

"I dare not, I dare not!" she answered through her teeth, and he felt
her trembling under his hand. He thought before he spoke again. Then
he said--

"I have vowed a vow to my saint that I will save you, soul and body;
and if it can be done only by a wedding, then we will be married, you
and I, Isoult. But if by battle I can serve your case as well, and rid
the suspicion and save your neck, why, I will do battle."

"Nay, lord," said the girl, "I must be hanged, for so the Lord Abbot
has decreed." And then she told him all that Galors had given her to
understand when he had her in the quarry.

Prosper heard her to the end: it was clear that she spoke as she
believed.

"Well, child," said he, "I see that all this is likely enough, though
for the life of me I cannot bottom it. But how then," he cried, after
a little more thinking, "shall I let you be hanged, and your neck so
fine and smooth!"

"Lord," she said, "let be for that; for since I was born I have heard