kingdom of England; and when their
mighty work was completed it was given into your hands to keep and
guard. And you died and abandoned it; Death, your playmate, has taken
you away, and Edgar's peace is no more. Now your ships are scattered or
sunk in the sea, now the invaders are again on your coasts as in the old
dreadful days, burning and slaying, and want is everywhere and fear is
in all hearts throughout the land. And the king, your son, who inherited
your beautiful face and nought beside except your vices and whatever was
least worthy of a king, he too is now taking his pleasure, even as you
took yours, in a gay bejewelled dress, with some shameless woman at his
side and a wine-cup in his hand. O unhappy mother that I am, that I must
curse the day a son was born to me! O grief immitigable that it was my
deed, my dreadful deed, that raised him to the throne--the throne that
was Alfred's and Edmund's and Athelstan's!

These were the thoughts that were her only company as she sat brooding
before her winter fire, day after day, and winter following winter,
while the years deepened the lines of anguish on her face and whitened
the hair that was once red gold.

But in the summer time she was less unhappy, for then she could spend
the long hours out of doors under the sky in the large shaded gardens of
the convent with the stream for boundary on the lower side. This stream
had now become more to her than in the old days when, languishing in
solitude, she had made it a companion and confidant. For now it had
become associated in her mind with the image of the maid Editha, and
when she sat again at the old spot on the bank gazing on the swift
crystal current, then dipping her hand in it and putting the wetted hand
to her lips, the stream and Editha were one.

Then one day she was missed, and for a long time they sought for her all
through the building and in the grounds without finding her. Then the
seekers heard a loud cry, and saw one of the nuns running towards the
convent door, with her hands pressed to her face as if to shut out some
dreadful sight; and when they called to her she pointed back towards the
stream and ran on to the house. Then all the sisters who were out in the
grounds hurried down to the stream to the spot where Elfrida was
accustomed to sit, and were horrified to see her lying drowned in the
water.

It was a hot, dry summer and the stream was low, and in stooping to dip
her hand in the water she