You too will come here to rest."
"Never, never," shrieked Torfrida, "never to these horrid vaults. I will
die in the fresh air! I will be buried under the green hollies; and the
nightingales as they wander up from my own Provence, shall build and sing
over my grave. Never, never!" murmured she to herself all the more
eagerly, because something within her said that it would come to pass.
The two women went into the church to Matins, and prayed long and
fervently. And at the early daybreak the party went back laden with good
things and hearty blessings, and caught one of Ivo Taillebois's men by the
way, and slew him, and got off him a new suit of clothes in which the poor
fellow was going courting; and so they got home safe into the Bruneswald.
But Torfrida had not found rest unto her soul. For the first time in her
life since she became the bride of Hereward, she had had a confidence
concerning him and unknown to him. It was to his own mother,--true. And
yet she felt as if she had betrayed him: but then had he not betrayed her?
And to Winter of all men?
It might have been two months afterwards that Martin Lightfoot put a
letter into Torfrida's hand.
The letter was addressed to Hereward; but there was nothing strange in
Martin's bringing it to his mistress. Ever since their marriage, she had
opened and generally answered the very few epistles with which her husband
was troubled.
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