adopted in its simple
truths, but not to that rot of social happiness and free manhood which
this cold and lifeless monarchism--making virtue the absence of human
ties--spreads around--which the great Bede [110], though himself a monk,
vainly but bitterly denounced;--yea, verily, when I see the Saxon already
the theowe of the priest, I shudder to ask how long he will be folk-free
of the tyrant."

He paused, breathed hard, and seizing, almost sternly, the girl's
trembling arm, he resumed between his set teeth: "So they would have thee
be a nun?--Thou wilt not,--thou durst not,--thy heart would perjure thy
vows!"

"Ah, Harold!" answered Edith, moved out of all bashfulness by his emotion
and her own terror of the convent, and answering, if with the love of a
woman, still with all the unconsciousness of a child: "Better, oh better
the grate of the body than that of the heart!--In the grave I could still
live for those I love; behind the Grate, love itself must be dead. Yes,
thou pitiest me, Harold; thy sister, the Queen, is gentle and kind; I
will fling myself at her feet, and say: 'Youth is fond, and the world is
fair: let me live my youth, and bless God in the world that he saw was
good!'"

"My own, own dear Edith!" exclaimed Harold, overjoyed. "Say this. Be
firm: they cannot and they dare not force thee! The law cannot wrench
thee against thy will from the ward of thy guardian Hilda; and, where the
law is, there Harold at least is strong,--and there at least our kinship,
if my bane, is thy blessing."

"Why, Harold, sayest thou that our kinship is thy bane? It is so sweet
to me to whisper to myself, 'Harold is of thy kith, though distant; and
it is natural to thee to have pride in his fame, and joy in his
presence!' Why is that sweetness to me, to thee so bitter?"

"Because," answered Harold, dropping the hand he had clasped, and folding
his arms in deep dejection, "because but for that I should say: 'Edith, I
love thee more than a brother: Edith, be Harold's wife!' And were I to
say it, and were we to wed, all the priests of the Saxons would lift up
their hands in horror, and curse our nuptials, and I should be the bann'd
of that spectre the Church; and my house would shake to its foundations;
and my father, and my brothers, and the thegns and the proceres, and the
abbots and prelates, whose aid makes our force, would gather round me
with threats and with prayers, that I might put thee aside. And mighty
as