“The King will never come to this rubbish heap,” she told herself despairingly. “Here we are buried no less than if we lay in a mound. It is not likely that we shall get news by an easier way than by going to him.”
Straining her eyes out over the mist-robed river, she tried for the thousandth time to think of some bait alluring enough to tempt Elfgiva to that point of daring. Hope the Lady of Northampton had every morning when she awoke and looked in her mirror, and Wrath lay down with her every night, but the rashness which had prompted her first attempt, Thorkel must have taken away with him, a trophy tied to his saddle-bow. She made big plans and she talked big words,—but always she put off their fulfilment until the morrow.
“At this gait, he could be dead and in his grave without my knowing it!” Randalin cried in despair, and her voice made it quite clear that “he” no longer meant the King. Since there was no one to see it, she even allowed her head to fall forward on her arms, and let the ache in her throat ease itself in a little sob. “Now it is open to me that I was foolish to let what happened in the garden, that day, cause so much sadness in my heart,” she sighed. “It should have been a great joy to me that he was still safe and happy... and I should have found some hope in it, also, for as long as he is in England there would always be the chance that I might see him again... And perhaps, after a long while, when he had quite forgotten how I looked as Fridtjof... if I should be able to learn many graceful woman’s ways from Elfgiva... and if he should come upon me when I had on a very beautiful kirtle... so long as he likes my hair...”
But even as the smile budded on her lips, she plucked it from them, trembling. “How dare I think of such things, when already they may have driven him across the sea! It would be quite enough if I could know that the same land is to hold us both, if I could have the hope of seeing him again to make it seem worth while for me to go on living. Oh, I did not dream how much I leaned on that, until it was taken from me!” In the utter loneliness of her despair, she crushed her face against her arm, pressing back the burning tears, and her heart rose in a prayer to the Englishman’s God, since her own no longer answered her: “Oh, Thou God, if Thou art kind and helpful as he says, it is easy for Thee to let him remain here where I can sometimes see him! Leave me this one hope, and I also will believe in Thee.” With her face hidden, she stood there praying it until it rang so strong through her soul that it seemed to her the Power could not but hear. And after He had heard, it would be so simple,—if He was as helpful as Sebert said.