bitterness.

Sister Sexberga rose, stretching toward her a tremulous pitying hand.
The light that shines on the mountain-top was very bright on her
wrinkled old face. She said softly, "It is not for me to say that you
sin in your grief, most dear sister. But I give you this thought for
your comfort: if you, who are tied to her by no bond of the flesh can
feel for her so great and brooding an affection, what then must be the
love of Him who fashioned her fair young body and lit the light of her
glad spirit? Of a surety its tender yearning can be no less than yours.
It may be that with tears He would wash the dust of the world from her
eyes, that her sight may be clear for a vision of holier things. But
believe that, even as you would shelter her, so will He not forsake her
in her helplessness. Believe, and be eased of your fear." A rustling of
her robe across the grass, and she was gone.

The chant ceased, the wavering treble dying away in a note of haunting
sweetness. The man moaned and clutched at his wound; and the bowed
figure by his side roused herself to tend him. Then a grating of rusty
hinges made her turn her head.

Under the crumbling arch, relieved against the green of the lane beyond,
stood the figure of a slender boy wrapped in a mantle of scarlet that
bore a strangely familiar look. His hair fell upon his shoulders in soft
wavy locks of raven blackness; but his face was turned away as his hands
fumbled at the fastening.

Sister Wynfreda rose and took a step forward, staring at him in
bewilderment.

"Fridtjof?" she questioned.

At the sound of her voice, the boy turned and hastened toward her. Then
a great cry burst from Sister Wynfreda, for the face under the black
locks was the face of Randalin.

Chapter II. Randalin, Frode's Daughter

At a hoary speaker
Laugh thou never.
Often is good that which the aged utter;
Oft from a shrivelled hide
Discreet words issue.
Ha'vama'l.

She made a convincing boy, this daughter of the Vikings. Though she was
sixteen, her graceful body had retained most of the lines and slender
curves of childhood; and she was long of limb and broad of shoulder. Her
head was poised alertly above her strong young throat, and she was as
straight as a fir-tree and as supple as a birch. A life out-of-doors had
given to her skin a tone of warm brown, which, in a land that expected
women to be lily-fair, was like a mask added to her disguise. The
blackne