“I cannot live without seeing thee, sweet Torfrida, and must come.” “Nay, rather will I ride forth to meet thee on Penda’s land than that thou shouldst break thine oath to the king.” “Brave indeed thou art, but I am loth to break my faith with the old man, though sorry that thou shouldst run into danger.” “Nay, little danger will it be to me in my father’s land, and in Penda’s thy presence will shield me from all questions.” And so they left it, and many times Torfrida rode out to meet her lover on the verge of king Penda’s land. And Penda waxed more and more bitter against the Christians, while Feargus’s ardour grew less and less as he learnt something of their faith from Torfrida, for hard she beset him. At length it fell one evening that king Sigmund asked for his daughter, and her maidens could not find her; high and low they looked, but in vain, till at nightfall she returned, and Sigmund asked whither she had been, and Torfrida blushed and at length told the king her father, and he was much angered. “So thou hast been holding tryst with thy father’s foe, and thou a Christian!” Then Torfrida wept and asked forgiveness. “Nay, I cannot forgive thee till thou hast broken this bond with young Feargus. The Christian may not wed with the worshipper of false gods. I little thought that child of mine could wish to wed with one who had lifted his hand against me.” And then Sigmund sent for the priest who dwelt with them, and he was wrath and forbade her trysting with Feargus, and they kept her a prisoner in her room until such times, said her father, as she promised to abandon her lover. And at the end of a month they came to her for an answer, and she said: “Never will I break my troth with Feargus, or wed other, Christian or heathen, for that I love him; and where love is, God will not and man may not come between; if he is infidel, will he not surely need a Christian to wife the more?” And there was anger between Sigmund and Torfrida, for he was wishful that she should strengthen his hands by wedding a Christian king. So Torfrida sent her brother Edwy secretly to meet Feargus at their tryst, to bid him beware, and Feargus turned homewards heavy-hearted. Now it happened that at this time Penda sent Feargus as a messenger to Northumbria, and there he fell in with one of the Christian priests of his own race, who took a liking to the young Pict, and Feargus, being by no means as bitter against the Christian as was his master Penda, listened to all he had to say, and received it kindly. So that before leaving he told the priest if it had not been for his duty to the old king and to his father, he would have almost become a Christian, whereupon the priest tried to show him that being of this mind his duty to his Maker was before that to his king and father.