Then Sir Archie turned to Elsalill with a startled face and said: "Do you see this hair, Elsalill, that is wound about my hand? Do you see this lock of fair hair?"
When he began to speak the girl saw nothing, but ere he had finished she saw a coil of fine, fair hair wind itself twice about Sir Archie's hand.
And Elsalill sprang up in terror and cried out: "Sir Archie, whose hair is it that is bound about your hand?"
Sir Archie looked at her in confusion, not knowing what to say. "It is real hair, Elsalill, I can feel it. It lies soft and cool about my hand. But whence did it come?"
The maid sat staring at his hand, and it seemed that her eyes would fall out of her head.
"So was it that my foster sister's hair was wound about the hand of him who murdered her," she said.
But now Sir Archie burst into a laugh. He quickly drew back his hand.
"Why," said he, "you and I, Elsalill, we are frightening ourselves like little children. It was nothing more than a bright sunbeam falling through the window."
But the girl fell to weeping and said: "Now methinks I am crouching again by the stove and I can see the murderers at their work. Ah, but I hoped to the last they would not find my dear foster sister, but then one of them came and plucked her from the wall, and when she sought to escape he twined her hair about his hand and held her fast. And she fell on her knees before him and said: 'Have pity on my youth! Spare my life, let me live long enough to know why I have come into the world! I have done you no ill, why would you kill me? Why would you deny me my life?' But he paid no heed to her words and killed her."
While Elsalill said this Sir Archie stood with a frown on his brow and turned his eyes away.