The Virgin Marriage

He had to talk, and as the girl gave him no help, Prosper found
himself asking questions and puzzling out the answers he got, trying
to make them fit with the facts. He was amazed that one so delicately
formed should go barefooted and bareheaded, clad in torn rags. To all
his questions she replied in a voice low and tremulous, and very
simply--that is to say, to such of them as she would answer at all. To
many--to all which touched upon Galors and his business with her in
the quarry--she was as dumb as a fish. Prosper was as patient as you
could expect.

He asked her who she was, and how called. She told him--"I am Matt-of-
the-Moors child, and men call me Isoult la Desirous."

"That is a strange name," said he. "How came you by such a name as
that?"

"Sir," said Isoult, "I have never had any other; and I suppose that I
have it because I am unhappy, and not at peace with those who seek
me."

"Who seeks you, Isoult?"

To that she gave no reply. So Prosper went on.

"If many sought you, child," he said, "you were rightly called Isoult
la Desirée, but if you, on the other hand, sought something or
somebody, then you were Isoult la Desirous. Is it not so?"

"My lord," said Isoult, "the last is my name."

"Then it must be that you too seek something. What is it that you seek,
that all the tithing knows of it?"