"I would rather sleep, child. Comfort him as best you can,--only not
so well that you forget that which I enjoined you. If he fail us, I cannot
tell what we shall do,--now that the second scullion has been so foolish as to
get himself killed in some way. Where bear you the ring?"
The girl touched the spot where the gold chain that encircled her neck crept
into the breast of her gown. The lady shook her head.
"Never would you think of it again. Take it out and wear it on your finger."
As she obeyed, Randalin laughed a little, for the ring was a man's ring, a
massive spiral whose two ends were finished with serpents' heads, and her
thickest finger was but a loose fit in its girth. But Elfgiva, when she had
seen it on, closed her eyes with an air of satisfaction.
"To keep from losing it, will keep it in your mind," she said. "Now leave me.
Candida, -- more softly! And see to it that you do not stop the moment my eyes
are closing. Leonorine, why are you industrious in singing only when it is not
required of you?... That is better... Let no one wake me."
They drew silence around her like a curtain through whose silken web the
blended voices of rain and lyre and singer crept in soothing melody. To escape
its ensnaring folds, Randalin stole back to the distant window beneath which
Dearwyn sat on a little bench, weaving clover blossoms into a chain.
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