Cormac had never seen Ethne in anguish before; for anguish was the only word to express the condition in which he now beheld her.
Her grief and tears appeared to him so unnatural that for a few seconds he had looked and listened without comprehending the scene before him.
“I have lost her!” Ethne was saying. “I have searched everywhere and I cannot find her. Neither seer nor soothsayer can aid me—I have lost her whom I would not have lost for all the world!”
Her grief was quite unfeigned. Her limbs trembled so much that she could not stand. Her face was white as death.
Cormac’s heart beat fast. The remembrance of his words to Elgiva came back to him.
He saw Ethne wring her hands in despair. She gave one mournful cry, “Elgiva! Elgiva!” and fell fainting into the arms of her women.
Cormac had a strange, choking sensation. The old passionate admiration for Ethne stirred in his heart once more, mixed with a flood of remorse and shame and doubt.
Elgiva had flown from his side. She had torn her way through the crowd. He could see her kneeling beside Ethne, holding her in her arms and calling upon her by name. Ethne had recovered from her momentary faintness, but was still so weak that Elgiva was obliged to support her. The two women laughed and cried together. There was a wild scene between them—Elgiva explaining, Ethne expostulating. Cormac could see that Ethne’s present joy was as unfeigned as her past grief.
The Saxon helped Ethne to her seat, and then knelt at her feet, holding one of the small white hands in a tender grasp. At sight of the two women a murmur of applause came from the people assembled in the hall.
Cormac stole up quietly and stood behind Elgiva, his sparkling eyes fixed on Ethne’s face; her face looked soft and gentle with the traces of grief still upon it. She looked up at him, not surprised at his appearance—having just heard from Elgiva that he had rescued her.