Long time they stood with hands locked, and much they spake, till the maidens of Torfrida came out to seek their mistress. Then said Torfrida, “Never again must thou come, O Feargus, for an the men of Penda or of my father caught thee, even though death were not dealt to thee, thou wouldest be for ever disgraced.”
“I cannot live without seeing thee, sweet Torfrida, and must come.”
“Nay, rather will I ride forth to meet thee on Penda’s land than that thou shouldst break thine oath to the king.”
“Brave indeed thou art, but I am loth to break my faith with the old man, though sorry that thou shouldst run into danger.”
“Nay, little danger will it be to me in my father’s land, and in Penda’s thy presence will shield me from all questions.”
And so they left it, and many times Torfrida rode out to meet her lover on the verge of king Penda’s land.
And Penda waxed more and more bitter against the Christians, while Feargus’s ardour grew less and less as he learnt something of their faith from Torfrida, for hard she beset him. At length it fell one evening that king Sigmund asked for his daughter, and her maidens could not find her; high and low they looked, but in vain, till at nightfall she returned, and Sigmund asked whither she had been, and Torfrida blushed and at length told the king her father, and he was much angered.
“So thou hast been holding tryst with thy father’s foe, and thou a Christian!”
Then Torfrida wept and asked forgiveness.