There was silence. Manuel worked his lips foolishly. "I wish we had not
walked abreast," he said. "I wish we had remained among the bright
dreams."

"All persons voice some regret or another at meeting me. And it does not
ever matter."

"But if there were no choosing in the affair, I could make
shift to endure it, either way. Now one of us, you tell me, must depart
with you. If I say, 'Let Niafer be that one,' I must always recall that
saying with self-loathing."

"But I too say it!" Niafer was petting him and trembling.

"Besides," observed the rider of the white horse, "you have a choice of
sayings."

"The other saying," Manuel replied, "I cannot utter. Yet I wish I were
not forced to confess this. It sounds badly. At all events, I love
Niafer better than I love any other person, but I do not value Niafer's
life more highly than I value my own life, and it would be nonsense to
say so. No; my life is very necessary to me, and there is a geas upon me
to make a figure in this world before I leave it."

"My dearest," says Niafer, "you have chosen wisely."

The veiled horseman said nothing at all. But he took off his hat, and
the beholders shuddered. The kinship to Miramon was apparent, you could
see the resemblance, but they had never seen in Miramon Lluagor's face