Edith's hand paused from its vague employment, and fell droopingly on
her knee;--she turned with an unquiet and anxious eye to Hilda, and
after looking some moments wistfully at the Vala, the colour rose to
her cheek, and she said in a voice that had an accent half of anger:

"Hilda, thou art cruel!"

"So is Fate!" answered the Vala. "But men call not Fate cruel when it
smiles on their desires. Why callest thou Hilda cruel, when she reads
in the setting sun the runes of thy coming joy!"

"There is no joy for me," returned Edith, plaintively; and I have that
on my heart," she added, with a sudden and almost fierce change of
tone, "which at last I will dare to speak. I reproach thee, Hilda,
that thou hast marred all my life, that thou hast duped me with
dreams, and left me alone in despair."

"Speak on," said Hilda, calmly, as a nurse to a froward child.

"Hast thou not told me, from the first dawn of my wondering reason,
that my life and lot were inwoven with--with (the word, mad and
daring, must out)--with those of Harold the peerless? But for that,
which my infancy took from thy lips as a law, I had never been so vain
and so frantic! I had never watched each play of his face, and
treasured each word from his lips; I had never made my life but part
of his life--all my soul but the shadow of his sun. But for that, I
had hailed the calm of the cloister--but for that, I had glided in
peace to my grave. And now--now, O Hilda--" Edith paused, and that
break had more eloquence than any words she could command. "And," she