hat he
laughed, neither angrily nor bitterly, but with the quietness of utter
contempt. "I will have the London goldsmiths send you a crown if you
wish," he said. "That is all you understand about being a queen."

She tried to protest, to cajole, to threaten. She tried to do so many
things at once that she accomplished none of them. Her speech became
less and less intelligible until tears and hysterical laughter reduced
it to mere mouthings, while her tiny hands beat the air with fingers
bent hook-like.

But the young King did not look at her again. He had rejoined his nobles
and was leading them toward the door, giving rapid orders as he walked.
"Do you, Rothgar, see to it that the horses are saddled. Kinsman Ulf, it
is my will that you join us some while later, when you have seen these
women returned in safety. You, my chiefs, get you ready to ride to
Oxford as quick as is possible." His voice was lost in the trampling as
they stepped from the turf upon the flagging of the gallery.

When the echoing tread was gone at last from the cloister, the garden
seemed strangely silent in spite of the hurrying servants,--silent and
empty. In the stillness, it came slowly to Randalin that life was not so
simple as she had supposed; that she was not going to die of her grief
but to live with it,--live with this dead emptiness in her breast.
The years seemed to stretch before her like the snow wastes of the
North,--white, white, white, without a break of living green.

Chapter XXIV. On The Road to London

Hotter than fire
Love for five days burns
Between false friends;
But is quenched
When the sixth day comes,
And friendship is all impaired.
Ha'vama'l.

From Edgeware, where the Watling Street left the Middlesex Forest to
cross the barren heath known as Tyburn Lane, the great road was crowded
with travellers. A small portion of them--messengers, soldiers, and
hunting parties--were riding northward, but the great mass was facing
the City whither they were pressing to warm themselves in the glow of
the Coronation. On foot, on horseback, in wagons and on crutches, they
were as motley a throng as had ever trod the Roman stones; and the
respectable element among them was by no means large enough to leaven
the lump. Sometimes a group of merchants was to be seen, conducting
loaded wagons; sometimes, a thane's pompous thane, ensheathed in his
retinue; while occasionally, as they neared the Ne