turned away her face from his searching eyes, in shame.
"I prefer not to know what he has done. Just explain to me your plan, and how I can help. You know better than I."
"I can't understand how comes it I can tell you; you are a strangah to all of us—and yet it seems like it is right. If I could get some clothes nobody has evah seen Frale weah—if—I could make him look different from a mountain boy, maybe he could get to some town down the mountain, and find work; but now they would meet up with him before he was halfway there."
Thryng rose and began pacing the room. "Is there any hurry?" he demanded, stopping suddenly before her.
"Yes."
"Then why have you waited all this time to tell me?"
She lifted her eyes to his in silence, and he knew well that she had not spoken because she could not, and that had he not ventured with his direct questions, she would have left him, carrying her burden with her, as hopelessly silent as when she came.
He sat beside her again and gently urged her to tell him without further delay all she had in her mind. "You feel quite sure that if he could get down the mountain side without being seen, he would be safe; where do you mean to send him? You don't think he would try to return?"