ach of the ghastly face.
It did not stop until the two soldiers who had been made keepers of the
wretched creature came running out of the house and led her away.

Then it was Thorkel's sardonic voice that brought the Lady of
Northampton back to herself. "Now, is this how you take the sight of
your own handiwork? Or is it because you regret that the King is not in
this plight? One mouthful and no more has she had of the blood of the
coiled snake."

Stopping where she was, Elfgiva gazed at him, and with a dawning
comprehension came back her interrupted fury. "The coiled snake," she
repeated slowly; and after that, in a rush of words, "Then it was you
who enticed her away and mistreated her? But what does it concern _you_
that I sent a snake? Where saw you it? How knew you it had blood?"
Without waiting for an answer, she turned upon the Marshal, her lids
contracted into narrow slits behind which her eyes raged like prisoned
animals. "It is you who are to blame for this! You who miscarried my
message. You have betrayed me, and I tell you--" Hysterical tears
broke her voice, but she pieced it together with her temper and went
on telling him all the bitter things she could think of, while he
stood before her in the grim silence of one who has long foreseen
the disagreeable aspects of his undertaking and made up his mind to
endurance.

When she stopped for breath, he said steadily, "I declare with truth
that you cannot dislike what I have done much more than I, Lady of
Northampton. I hope it will be an excuse with you, as it is a comfort to
me, that instead of fetching you into trouble--"

Thorkel took the words from his lips, and no longer with sinister
deliberation but with a ferocity that showed itself in the gathering
swiftness of his speech. "Trouble--yes! By the Hammer of Thor, I think
you deserve to have trouble! Had any of your witches' brew done harm
to the King, I can tell you that you would not have lived much longer.
What! Are the plans of men to be upset by your baby face, and a king-dom
lost because a little fool chooses to play with poison as a child with
fire?"

"Poison?" she screamed. She had been facing him with whitening lips, and
now the little breath that she had left went from her in a sharp cry.
"Not poison; love-philtres! To win him back! Love-philtres,--can you not
hear?"

"Love-philtres!" The old warrior's voice made the words bite with
contempt. "Did the mouthful she swallowed have that eff