me for dead.
When I got my senses again, I found my way to the nuns of St. Mildred's;
and they gave me food, and I rode hither."

"It is the Troll's luck! I--yet, go on. The day will come! Did they
further harm within the castle? Have you women-kin?"

Randalin hesitated. Would it not be safer if she could deny altogether
the existence of a daughter of Frode? But no, that was not possible, in
the face of what Norman might reveal. She began very, very carefully:
"It happened that my mother died before we came to Avalcomb; and my
father had but one daughter. She was called Randalin. I did not see what
became of her, for I was outside; but I think that she is dead. A--her
thrall-woman told me that Leofwinesson pursued her to a chamber in the
wall. And and because she could not escape from him--she--she threw
herself from the window, and the stones below caused her death."

The King's hands clenched convulsively. "It is like them!" he muttered.
"It has happened as I supposed. If the master be like his men, I ask you
in what their God is to be preferred to ours? Have no fear but that
I will avenge your kinswoman. Those of her own blood-ties could do no
more. And Frode also. You need not wait long for me when the day comes;
the last hair of the otter-skin shall be covered, though I take from
them the Ring itself. You shall see! Have patience, and you shall see!"

Upon burning ears the word "patience" falls coldly.

"Patience!" the child of Frode repeated.

Perhaps in days gone by the young King himself had rebelled at the
tyranny of that word. Perhaps the smart of its scourge was still upon
him. He put forth a kindly hand and drew the boy down beside him.

"Listen, young one," he said, "and do not blame me for what I cannot
help. Had I come hither only to get property and go away again, as
Northmen before me have come, it would not matter to me whom I killed,
and I would slay Leofwinesson more gladly than I would eat; may the
Giant take me if I lie! But I have come to the Island to set up my
seat-pillars and get myself land. I think no one guesses how much I have
the ambition at heart; even to me it appears a strange wonder. But it
is true that I look upon the fair rolling meadows with such eyes of
love that when it is necessary that I should set fire to them, it is as
though I had laid the torch to my hair. And because of that, in order
that I be not kept destroying them until they are not worth the having,
I have made