"I have always heard," said he, bowing, "that if the Lady Gyda had been
born a man, England would have had another all-seeing and all-daring
statesman, and Earl Godwin a rival, instead of a helpmate. Now I believe
what I have heard."
But Torfrida looked sadly at the Countess. There was something pitiable in
the sight of a woman ruined, bereaved, seemingly hopeless, portioning out
the very land from which she was a fugitive; unable to restrain the
passion for intrigue, which had been the toil and the bane of her sad and
splendid life.
"And now," she went on, "surely some kind saint brought me, even on my
first landing, to you of all living men."
"Doubtless the blessed St. Bertin, beneath whose shadow we repose here in
peace," said Hereward, somewhat dryly.
"I will go barefoot to his altar to-morrow, and offer my last jewel," said
Gunhilda.
"You," said Gyda, without noticing her daughter, "are, above all men, the
man who is needed." And she began praising Hereward's valor, his fame, his
eloquence, his skill as a general and engineer; and when he suggested,
smiling, that he was an exile and an outlaw, she insisted that he was all
the fitter from that very fact. He had no enemies among the nobles. He had
been mixed up in none of the civil wars and blood feuds of the last
fifteen years.
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