her untruth and her hatred of him; yet would the sound of her voice,
as she came and went in the house, make his heart beat; and the
sight of her stirred desire within him, so that he longed for her to
be sweet and kind with him, and deemed that, might it be so, he
should forget all the evil gone by. But it was not so; for ever
when she saw him, her face changed, and her hatred of him became
manifest, and howsoever she were sweet with others, with him she was
hard and sour.

So this went on a while till the chambers of his father's house, yea
the very streets of the city, became loathsome to him; and yet he
called to mind that the world was wide and he but a young man. So
on a day as he sat with his father alone, he spake to him and said:
"Father, I was on the quays even now, and I looked on the ships that
were nigh boun, and thy sign I saw on a tall ship that seemed to me
nighest boun. Will it be long ere she sail?"

"Nay," said his father, "that ship, which hight the Katherine, will
they warp out of the haven in two days' time. But why askest thou
of her?"

"The shortest word is best, father," said Walter, "and this it is,
that I would depart in the said ship and see other lands."

"Yea and whither, son?" said the merchant.

"Whither she goeth," said Walter, "for I am ill at ease at home, as
thou wottest, father."

The merchant held his peace awhile, and looked hard on his son, for