hem came Harold, for in his heart had dawned the light of a new
wisdom, and he knew the truth as we know it, you and I. So Harold was
baptized in the Christian faith, he and his children; but Persis, his
wife, was not baptized, for she was the daughter of a Pagan king, and
she feared to bring evil upon those she loved by doing any blasphemous
thing. Right sorely grieved was Harold because of this, and oftentimes
he spake with her thereof, and oftentimes he prayed unto his God and
ours to incline her mind toward the cross, which saveth all alike. But
Persis would say: "My best beloved, let me not do this thing in haste,
for I fear to vex thy God since I am a Pagan and the daughter of a
Pagan king, and therefore have not within me the light that there is in
thee and thy kind. Perchance (since thy God is good and gracious) the
light will come to me anon, and shine before mine eyes as it shineth
before thine. I pray thee, let me bide my time." So spake Persis, and
her life ever thereafter was kind and charitable, as, soothly, it had
ever before been, and she served Harold, her husband, well, and she was
beloved of all, and a great sweetness came to all out of her daily life.

It fortuned, upon a day whilst Harold was from home, there was knocking
at the door of their house, and forthwith the door opened and there
stood in the midst of them one clad all in black and of rueful
countenance. Then, as if she foresaw evil, Persis called unto her
little ones and stood between them and that one all in black, and she
demanded of him his name and will. "I am the Death-Angel," quoth he,
"and I come for the best-beloved of thy lambs!"

Now Theodoric was that best-beloved; for he was her very little one,
and had always slept upon her bosom. So when she heard those words she
made a great outcry, and wrestled with the Death-Angel, and sought to
stay him in his purpose. But the Death-Angel chilled her with his
breath, and overcame her, and prevailed against her; and he reached
into the midst of them and took Theodoric in his arms and folded him
upon his breast, and Theodoric fell asleep there, and his head dropped
upon the Death-Angel's shoulder. But in her battle for the child,
Persis catched at the chain about the child's neck, and the chain brake
and remained in her hand, and upon the chain was the little cross of
fair alabaster which an holy man had put there when Theodoric was
baptized. So the Death-Angel went his way with