'Why does not Ralph come? Why does he not come?' exclaimed Emma, covering her face with her slender hands, which had grown so thin that she could scarce keep on her wedding ring. 'My heart is full of fears, Eadgyth. I dreamt of him last night, ill and sorrowful, tossing on a bed of fever. He was ill when he went away, his wounds half-healed. It is all doubt and dread—and horror!'
'Ah, Christ have mercy upon us!' said Eadgyth, who was kneeling beside the bed.
'I dare not ask for mercy,' said Emma piteously. 'I am fighting in a wrong cause! Thy Sir Aimand said it. I have brought all this woe and suffering on the man who loved me, and on those who love him and follow him, like leal knights and true!'
'Oh, do not torment yourself with such thoughts, sweet heart! Surely it was no wrong cause to strive with the oppressor of this wretched land,—he whose minions were killing the heart out of his victims with every species of wrong and outrage!'
The tears were running swiftly enough down Eadgyth's cheeks now.
'Alas!' said Emma, 'I fear we thought less of that than of our own revenge and ambition.'
'But how couldst thou have helped it?'
'I might have helped it. I might have refused to marry against the king's command, and gone into a convent, and then the bride-ale would never have been, nor its direful following.'
'Perchance it had been better,' said Eadgyth thoughtfully.
'No, it would not have been better!' cried Emma, starting up, impatient at Eadgyth's acquiescence; she had given her scruples voice that they might be combated, not confirmed. 'I would go through it all again and more to be Ralph's wife, and I am a contemptible coward, a noding, to be puling here because my roses are not thornless, when I might be helping to keep my hero's castle for him!'