slowly. "Am I to know nothing of her
object? Or why I am chosen of all others?"

"Easy is it to tell that," she laughed. "You were not chosen without a
reason, and that is because no one else is to be had, since the scullion
who formerly served her has gotten himself killed in some way and the
man who stepped into his shoes, out of some spite, has refused Teboen's
gold. And as for her object--I wonder at you, lord of my heart! What
kind of a lover are you that you cannot guess that?" Feigning to flout
him, she drew away; then feigning to relent, turned back and laughed it
into his ear. "It is a love-token! To hold him to the fair promises he
made at its giving, and to remind him of her, and to win her a crown,
and to do so many strange wonders that no tongue can number them! Are
you not ashamed to have failed on so easy a riddle?"

To her surprise, his gravity deepened almost to horror. "Love-token!" he
repeated; and suddenly he laid his hands on her shoulders and forced her
gently to give him eye for eye. "Randalin, if I comply with you in this
matter, will you answer me a question? Answer with such care as though
your life--nay, as though _my_ life depended on it?"

"Willingly; more than one," she consented; but forgot to wait for it as
a memory, wakened by his words, stirred in her. "Now it is time for me
to remember that there is one thing I have not been altogether truthful
about, through forgetting,--about the Danes we have seen. I recall now
that last winter Teboen often saw one when she was gathering herbs
in the wood. She spoke with him of the magic things she brews to make
Elfgiva sleep, and he gave her herbs which she thought so useful that
she has been fretful because she has not seen him since--"

Unconsciously, the young soldier's hands tightened on her shoulders
until she winced. "You know with certainty that she has never seen him
since?" he demanded,--"that Danes had naught to do with the last token
Elfgiva sent through the scullion? You can swear to it?"

"Certainly, if they speak the truth, I know it," she answered
wonderingly. "How should Danes--why, Sebert, what ails you?"

For he had let go her shoulders as abruptly as he had seized them, and
walked away to the window that looked out upon the rain-washed garden.
After a moment's hesitation, she stole after him. "Sebert, my love, what
is it? Trouble is in your mind, there is little use to deny it. Dearwyn
says it concerns me, but I know that i