involve her in our dangers."

He was once again the man I had wrangled with. His eyes blazed, and he
spoke in a high tone of command. But I could not be wroth with him;
indeed, I liked him for his peremptoriness. It comforted me to think
that Elspeth had so warm a defender.

I nodded to Shalah. "Tell him," I said, and Shalah spoke with him. He
took long to convince, but at, the end he said no more, and went to
speak to Elspeth. I could see that she lightened his troubled mind a
little, for, having accepted her fate, she was resolute to make the
best of it, I even heard her laugh.

That night we made her a bower of green branches, and as we ate our
supper round our modest fire she sat like a queen among us. It was odd
to see the way in which her presence affected each of us. With her Grey
was the courtly cavalier, ready with a neat phrase and a line from the
poets. Donaldson and Shalah were unmoved; no woman could make any
difference to their wilderness silence. The Frenchman Bertrand grew
almost gay. She spoke to him in his own tongue, and he told her all
about the little family he had left and his days in far-away France. But
in Ringan was the oddest change. Her presence kept him tongue-tied, and
when she spoke to him he was embarrassed into stuttering. He was eager
to serve her in everything, but he could not look her in the face or
answer readily when she spoke. This man, so debonair and masterful
among his fellows, was put all out of countenance by a wearied girl. I
do not suppose he had spoken to a gentlewoman for ten years.