The eyes were a little staring this morning, as though still stretched wide
with the horror of the things they had looked upon; and all the glowing red
blood had ebbed away from the brown cheeks.
She said in a low voice, "My father... Fridtjof..." then stopped to draw a
long hard breath through her set teeth.
For the moment Sister Wynfreda was not a nun but a woman,--a woman with a
great yearning tenderness that might have been a beautiful mother-love. She
ran to the girl and caught her tremblingly by the hands, feeling up her arms
to her shoulders and about her face, as if to make sure that she was really
unharmed.
"Praise the Lord that you are delivered whole to me!" she breathed. "Gram told
us--that they had taken you."
Gazing at her out of horror-filled eyes, Randalin stood quite still in her
embrace. Her story came from her in jerks, and each fragment seemed to leave
her breathless, though she spoke slowly.
"I broke away," she said. "They stood around me in a ring. Norman Leofwinesson
said he would carry me before a priest and marry me, so that Avalcomb might be
his lawfully, whichever king got the victory. I said by no means would I wed
him; sooner would I slay him. All thought that a great jest and laughed. While
they were shouting I slipped between them and got up the stairs into a
chamber, where I bolted the door and would not open to them, though they
pounded their fists sore and cursed at me.
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