had Edgar. She had not
dealt the fatal blow then nor now, but she had wished for Edward's death
even as she had wished for Athelwold's, and it was for her the blow was
struck. It was a difficult and dreadful question. She was not equal to
it. Let it be put off, the pressing question now was, what would man's
judgment be--how would she now stand before the world?

And now the hope came that the secret of the king's disappearance would
never be known; that after a time it would be assumed that he was dead,
and that his death would never be traced to her door.

A vain hope, as she quickly found! There had been too many witnesses of
the deed both of the castle people and those who lived outside the
gates. The news spread fast and far as if carried by winged messengers,
so that it was soon known throughout the kingdom, and everywhere it was
told and believed that the queen herself had dealt the fatal blow.

Not Elfrida nor any one living at that time could have foretold the
effect on the people generally of this deed, described as the foulest
which had been done in Saxon times. There had in fact been a thousand
blacker deeds in the England of that dreadful period, but never one that
touched the heart and imagination of the whole people in the same way.
Furthermore, it came after a long pause, a serene interval of many years
in the everlasting turmoil--the years of the reign of Edgar the
Peaceful, whose early death had up till then been its one great sorrow.
A time too of recovery from a state of insensibility to evil deeds; of
increasing civilisation and the softening of hearts. For Edward was the
child of Edgar and his child-wife, who was beautiful and beloved and
died young; and he had inherited the beauty, charm, and all engaging
qualities of his parents. It is true that these qualities were known at
first-hand only by those who were about him; but from these the feeling
inspired had been communicated to those outside in ever-widening circles
until it was spread over all the land, so that there was no habitation,
from the castle to the hovel, in which the name of Edward was not as
music on man's lips. And we of the present generation can perhaps
understand this better than those of any other in the past centuries,
for having a prince and heir to the English throne of this same name so
great in our annals, one as universally loved as was Edward the Second,
afterwards called the Martyr, in his day.

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