"
Stopping where she was, Elfgiva gazed at him, and with a dawning comprehension
came back her interrupted fury. "The coiled snake," she repeated slowly; and
after that, in a rush of words, "Then it was you who enticed her away and
mistreated her? But what does it concern _you_ that I sent a snake? Where saw
you it? How knew you it had blood?" Without waiting for an answer, she turned
upon the Marshal, her lids contracted into narrow slits behind which her eyes
raged like prisoned animals. "It is you who are to blame for this! You who
miscarried my message. You have betrayed me, and I tell you--" Hysterical
tears broke her voice, but she pieced it together with her temper and went on
telling him all the bitter things she could think of, while he stood before
her in the grim silence of one who has long foreseen the disagreeable aspects
of his undertaking and made up his mind to endurance.
When she stopped for breath, he said steadily, "I declare with truth that you
cannot dislike what I have done much more than I, Lady of Northampton. I hope
it will be an excuse with you, as it is a comfort to me, that instead of
fetching you into trouble--"
Thorkel took the words from his lips, and no longer with sinister deliberation
but with a ferocity that showed itself in the gathering swiftness of his
speech. "Trouble--yes! By the Hammer of Thor, I think you deserve to have
trouble! Had any of your witches' brew done harm to the King, I can tell you
that you would not have lived much longer.
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