Hazel passed her hands over her face, and tried to collect her thoughts.
'I am a great deal of trouble,'she said slowly; for the touch of the wet hair was suggestive, and it seemed to her just then that she was nothing but trouble to anybody.
'And what is it that is troubling thee?' said Gyda, stooping down with her hand on Wych Hazel's shoulder, the wrinkled, sweet old face looking earnestly for the answer.
'How can you set things right?' said Hazel, with her usual inroad to the midst of the case. 'How can you set them right, when you do not know where they are wrong?'
'Will my lady tell me what is wrong?' said the old woman, probably judging this statement of the position too vague to be acted upon. 'But come and sit down, and see the fire, and get comfortable; and tell me; and then we'll know.'
Wych Hazel rose and came to the fire as she was bid, and looked at it, seeing nothing; but her next words touched another point.
'Why do such things come upon people?' she said.
The old Norsewoman stood beside her, watching with all the wisdom of her loving, wise heart to see where the hurt was and what the medicine must be. She put her hand again upon Wych Hazel's shoulder as she looked.
'What has come?' she said. 'It's notmy lad?' she added, with evidently a sudden startle of apprehension.
'He is away, you know,' said Hazel, with an immediate reserve of voice. 'I know nothing of him.'