Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-12-02

cowardice he would be equal to the wild
brazenness of fiinging the avowal in the
teeth of his assembled court. Her pulses
began To pound in a furious dance as the
same flash of intuition showed her the rock
upon which the Gamers audacious steering
was going to wreck him.
For no skulking guilt was In the face OF
the new king of England he met the
startled glances, but instead. a kind of
savage JOY that wdened his nostrils and
drew his lips away from his teeth in a ter
rible smile.
Now much do l thank whatever god has
moved you to open speech he said for
with every fiber of my body have l long
wanted to reQuite you for that faithfulness.
Knowing that you We're coming tonight to
ask it. have the reward ready. Never was
recompense given with a better will" Leap
ing to his feet, he hurled the goblet in his
hand against the opposite wall, SO that it
was shattered ON the stone behind the en-
brodered hangings. AT the signal the tap
estry was lifted and in the light stood Eric
of Norway, leaning on a mighty .battle-ax.
To him the king cried in a loud voice, all
the irony gone from it, leaving it awful as
the voice of Thor at Ragnarok. do your
work where all can see you, Eric Jarl, that
no man shall accuse me of being afraid to
bear my deeds. And let Norman Leof-
winesson die with his lord for the Staying
of Erode of Avalcomb.'
A roar of hideous sound-a confusion of
overturned lights of screeching servants,
of writhing, struggling bodies-above 1t all,
the vision Of that gittering ak poised in the
air-then flashing downward-Randalin's
recollections blurred, ran together and
faded out in broken snatches.
She recalled brief space of something
like sleep walking as the soldiers led her
through branching corridors to this room,
and fetched for her attendant the only
woman available wench they had taken
from trencher-washng In the royal kitchen
She remembered irritalbly rejecting the
woman's clumsy services and sending her
70 ,1l tar nall vyh
walked to and fro with her surglng
thoughts until sheer physical exhaustion
forced her to throw herself upon the bed.
After that she MISUNDERSTANDING
IT am glad that / did not disgrace my
kin by screaming or fainting.'' she reflect
ed now, as she raised herself stifiy. IT am
glad l did that much credit to my name"
She fiusaed~as her hand. touching the pill
bearing of her head was less erect Il
do not remember what l dreamed she
murmured, but full we'll l know that
it was not because Norman Leofwines-
in my Sleep" For while she dropped
there, her eyes on the open window. out
side of which a robin was singing blithely
among the cherries. But all at once she
seized the pillow with kind of flerceness,
and turned it over and piled the others on
top of it. crying under her breath. How
dared he! How dared he! l will shed no
tears for him while am awake. l will re-
member only that / am my fathers daugh-
ter and the Lady Of Avalcomb.'
Proudly as became an odal woman, she
followed the page when he came at last to
call her to the royal presence. The great
stone hall In which the king awaited the
arrival of his Norman bride was the same
room in which he had Toasted the night
before, but tables and dishes now were
gone, gold-weighted tapestries hung once
more over the door by which Eric OF Nor
way had made his entrance and rich
hued rug from an eastern loom lay over
the spot where she had seen the ak rise
and fall. Crossing the threshold, the COM
monplaceness of it all clashed so dlscor-
dainty with the scene in her memory that
for an instant she grew faint and chung to
the curtains between which she was pass