e," returned Edith, plaintively; "and I have that on
my heart," she added, with a sudden and almost fierce change of tone,
"which at last I will dare to speak. I reproach thee, Hilda, that thou
hast marred all my life, that thou hast duped me with dreams, and left me
alone in despair."

"Speak on," said Hilda, calmly, as a nurse to a froward child.

"Hast thou not told me, from the first dawn of my wondering reason, that
my life and lot were inwoven with--with (the word, mad and daring, must
out)--with those of Harold the peerless? But for that, which my infancy
took from thy lips as a law, I had never been so vain and so frantic! I
had never watched each play of his face, and treasured each word from his
lips; I had never made my life but part of his life--all my soul but the
shadow of his sun. But for that, I had hailed the calm of the
cloister--but for that, I had glided in peace to my grave. And now--now,
O Hilda--" Edith paused, and that break had more eloquence than any words
she could command. "And," she resumed quickly, "thou knowest that these
hopes were but dreams--that the law ever stood between him and me--and
that it was guilt to love him."

"I knew the law," answered Hilda, "but the law of fools is to the wise as
the cobweb swung over the brake to the wing of the bird. Ye are sibbe to
each other, some five times removed; and therefore an old man at Rome
saith that ye ought not to wed. When the shavelings obey the old man at
home, and put aside their own wives and frillas [137], and abstain from
the wine cup, and the chase, and the brawl, I will stoop to hear of their
laws,--with disrelish it may be, but without scorn. [138] It is no sin
to love Harold; and no monk and no law shall prevent your union on the
day appointed to bring ye together, form and heart."

"Hilda! Hilda! madden me not with joy," cried Edith, starting up in
rapturous emotion, her young face dyed with blushes, and all her
renovated beauty so celestial that Hilda herself was almost awed, as if
by the vision of Freya, the northern Venus, charmed by a spell from the
halls of Asgard.

"But that day is distant," renewed the Vala.

"What matters! what matters!" cried the pure child of Nature; "I ask but
hope. Enough,--oh! enough, if we were but wedded on the borders of the
grave!"

"Lo, then," said Hilda, "behold, the sun of thy life dawns again!"

As she spoke, the Vala stretched her arm, and through the intersticed
columns