ted head bowed to the
earth. And in the pomp that she could not share, she had exulted; but,
oh, now--now,--oh now that she could have knelt beside that humbled form,
and prayed with that voiceless prayer!

The torches flashed in the court below; the church was again deserted;
the monks passed in mute procession back to their cloister; but a single
man paused, turned aside, and stopped at the gate of the humbler convent:
a knocking was heard at the great oaken door, and the watch-dog barked.
Edith started, pressed her hand on her heart and trembled. Steps
approached her door--and the abbess, entering, summoned her below, to
hear the farewell greeting of her cousin the King.

Harold stood in the simple hall of the cloister: a single taper, tall and
wan, burned on the oak board. The abbess led Edith by the hand, and at a
sign from the King, withdrew. So, once more upon earth, the betrothed
and divided were alone.

"Edith," said the King, in a voice in which no ear but hers could have
detected the struggle, "do not think I have come to disturb thy holy
calm, or sinfully revive the memories of the irrevocable past: where once
on my breast, in the old fashion of our fathers, I wrote thy name, is
written now the name of the mistress that supplants thee. Into Eternity
melts the Past; but I could not depart to a field from which there is no
retreat--in which, against odds that men say are fearful, I have resolved
to set my crown and my life--without once more beholding thee, pure
guardian of my happier days! Thy forgiveness for all the sorrow that, in
the darkness which surrounds man's hopes and dreams, I have brought on
thee (dread return for love so enduring, so generous and divine!)--thy
forgiveness I will not ask. Thou alone perhaps on earth knowest the soul
of Harold; and if he hath wronged thee, thou seest alike in the wronger
and the wronged, but the children of iron Duty, the servants of imperial
Heaven. Not thy forgivenness I ask--but--but--Edith, holy maid! angel
soul!--thy--thy blessing!" His voice faltered, and he inclined his lofty
head as to a saint.

"Oh that I had the power to bless!" exclaimed Edith, mastering her rush
of tears with a heroic effort; "and methinks I have the power--not from
virtues of my own, but from all that I owe to thee! The grateful have
the power to bless. For what do I not owe to thee--owe to that very love
of which even the grief is sacred? Poor child in the house of the
he