urned. At night
she could not rest, and by day she would not eat. All the things that
she had cared most to do were now dull and worthless to her because
Arviragus was away.

Her friends saw her sorrow, and tried to comfort her in every way they
could. When they found she would not be comforted, they spoke harshly
to her, and told her that it was very wrong of her to kill herself
with sorrow, when Arviragus hoped to come home again strong and
famous. Then they began to comfort her again, and to try to make her
forget her sadness.

After a long time Dorigen's sorrow began to grow quieter. She could
not have lived if she had always felt her grief as deeply as she did
at first. Indeed, as it was, this sorrow would have broken her heart,
if letters had not come from Arviragus. They brought her tidings of
his doings, and of the glory he had won. But what comforted her most
was that they told her that he would soon return.

When Dorigen's friends saw that she was less hopeless, they begged her
to come and roam with them to drive away the last of her dark fears.
This she did. Often she walked with them by the edge of the cliffs on
which her castle stood. But there she saw the white ships and the
brown barges sailing, one north, another south, to the havens for
which they were bound. Then she would turn away from her friends and
say to herself:

"Alas! of all the ships I see, is there never one that will bring my
lord home? Then should I need no comfort. My heart would be cured of
this bitter smart."

At times as she sat and thought, she leaned down and looked over the
brink of the cliffs. But, when she saw the grisly, black rocks, her
very heart trembled within her. Then she would sink down on the grass
and wail:

"O God, men say Thou hast made nothing in vain, but, Lord, why hast
Thou made these black, grisly rocks? No man nor beast is helped by
them in all the world. Rocks have destroyed a hundred thousand men,
and which of all Thy works is so fair as man? No doubt wise men will
say, 'All is for the best.' But, oh Thou God, who makest the winds to
blow, keep Thou my lord! And--would to God that these black rocks were
sunk in the deep for his sake! They slay my heart with fear."

Dorigen's friends saw that the sea brought back her sorrow. They led
her then by rivers and springs, and took her to every lovely place
they knew, from which there was no glimpse of the sea.

In the valley, to landward of the castle, lay m