'How knewest thou that, witch of Endor?' he demanded.
'Nay, thou hast experience that the spirits of the air are at my beck, and that my power serves me to gain knowledge of all that concerns my dearly-beloved spouse,' returned Judith, with a sneer.
'Sorceress! I believe, in sooth, thou art leagued with the devil!' quoth Waltheof furiously, and his expression was no metaphor. He was superstitious by nature, and his sharp-witted wife had done her utmost to impress him with the notion that her intellectual gifts were replenished from supernatural sources. Hence her power over him. 'But I tell thee, thou hadst better never have been born than meddle in this concern of thy husband's. For this concern, is the concern not of my poor unworthy self, but of my country, of my people! And I tell thee, foreign harridan, I had liefer strangle thee with mine own hands than be frustrated!'
''Tis pity,' quoth Judith calmly, 'since the matter is marred already.'
'What meanest thou, viper?' shouted Waltheof, fully aroused and springing to his feet, and advancing towards Judith with a threatening gesture, his mighty fist, which could have struck the life from her frail body at a blow, clenched into an iron ball, and the knots in his massive throat working with nervous excitement.
But Judith faced him unmoved, her proud face flashing with scorn. For the blood of Robert the Devil and Arlète of Falaise was hot in her veins, and perhaps she opined, also, that even in his wrath her heroic lord was too generous to hurt her. She did not quail before him but stood looking at him with her defiant, steadfast eyes.
'Slay me if thou wilt,' she said, without a falter in her tone. 'That which is done cannot be undone. My death will not hinder the stout messenger that sped through the night, ere thou hadst reeled from the banquet to thy chamber, from bearing the news of thy treason to Lanfranc. In vain wilt thou seek to overtake him, for he hath nigh a twelve hours' start, and he is mounted on thine own Spanish destrier, the swiftest steed in England—William's gift!'
The oath with which Waltheof answered was too terrible for repetition. He sprang at his wife, and clutched her slender throat with his strong fingers, as if he were in very truth about to execute his threat and strangle her.
She stood like a statue, though the weight of his hands upon her shoulders almost bore her to the ground.
'My people are as dear to me as thine to thee,' she said, expecting the death-grip to follow her bold speech. 'Thou hast sworn fealty to William, nay, thou hast done him homage, and put thy hands between his and vowed to be his man; thou hast married me, his niece! The struggle and the bloodshed are over, the Normans and Saxons should be one, and thou wouldst renew the strife and divide them again!'