ndance when your cheeks are like bowls for the
catching of your tears?"

The boy seemed to gather strength from the caressing hands, as Thor from
the touch of his magic belt. He even gave a little breathless laugh of
elation. "As to that, I think he is not wise enough to guess the truth.
I will tell him that you have thought it revengeful toward him to starve
your Danish captive; and because it is in every respect according to
what he would do in your place, I think he will have no misgivings."

Pulling the soft curls with a suggestion of his old lightheartedness,
the Etheling laughed with him. "You bantling! Who would have dreamed you
to that degree artful? Are you certain your craft will bear you out?
I would not have you suffer their anger. Are you capable of so much
feigning?"

For an instant the boy's eyes were even audacious; and all the
hollowness of the cheeks could not hide a flashing dimple. "Oh, my dear
lord, I am capable of so much more feigning than you guess!" he answered
daringly.

"Nay, have I not been wont to call you elf?" Sebert returned. Then his
voice deepened with feeling. "By the soul of my father, Fridtjof, if you
bring me out of this snare, me and mine, I declare with truth that there
will be no recompense you can ask at my hands which I shall not be glad
to grant--" He paused in the wonder of seeing the sparkle in the blue
eyes flee away like a flitting light.

The page turned from him almost with a sob. "Pray you, promise me
nothing!" he said hastily. "If ever I see you again, and you have more
to give me than pity--Nay, I shall lose my courage if I think of that
part. Get me out quickly while the heart is firm within me. And give me
a draught from your cup to warm my blood."

"Certainly it would be best for you to come to them while they are in
such a state of feasting that their good-humor is keenest and their wits
dullest," Sebert assented.

He spoke but with the matter-of-factness of a soldier reconnoitring a
position, but on the girl in the page's dress the words fell like blows.
Then it was that she realized for the first time how ill a crumb can
satisfy the hunger which asks for a loaf; that she knew that her body
was not the only part of her which was starving. Somewhere on that dark
stairway she lost the boyishness out of her nature forever. The thin
cheeks were white under their tan when they came again into the light of
the guard-room fire; and the blue eyes had in them a wo