“Yes, Athelwold?”
He held her convulsively. “O, forgive me, Elfrida, that I made thee Queen of love, not England! Thy wealth, thy name, I told him, were the charms that gilded servile eyes—enough, perhaps, for such as I, but for him, lacking the first and best of recommendations. And he believed me, and yielded thee to me. And now, and now”—he held her from him, his chest heaving, his voice breaking—“my sin hath found me out—some one hath betrayed me—and he is coming in person to put my report to the proof. Feigning to prepare for his visit, I fled but in time to forestall him by a few hours. Ah, love! all is lost unless thou lovest me.”
She answered quite softly: “What am I to do, Athelwold?”
“Do, be anything but Elfrida. Dress slovenly, speak rudely, soil and discredit thine own perfection.”
“Substitute another for thy lady.”
They both started, and fell apart. The dwarf, forgotten by the one, unnoticed by the other, had risen from his stool. The Thane’s hand whipped furiously to his sword-hilt.
“Nay,” said the girl, interposing—“Daukin is my dog; Daukin loves me; Daukin shall speak.”
“Let the Thane,” said the dwarf, cool and caustic, “seek his couch on pretence of fever, and let Alse, the cookmaid, receive the King. We be all devoted servants of our house. A little persuasion, a little guile, and the thing is carried.”
“I will go instruct the wench,” said Elfrida hurriedly.
She seemed charmed with the idea. She drove her lord to his hiding, with a peremptory laughing injunction that he was not to issue therefrom until summoned by herself; she refused to linger a moment by his side in her excitement. Her eyes had never looked so heavenly-bright and blue.