But for once the Etheling’s will did not bend to her coaxing; his mouth was doggedly set as he looked down upon her. “I trust no man I do not know,” he answered, “and I do not know Canute the man,—nor do I greatly like what I have heard of him, or this plan of sending me from the City at this time. You have no cause to reproach me with lack of faith in you, Randalin, for when every happening—even your own words—made it appear as if it were love for Rothgar Lodbroksson which brought you into the camp, I looked into your eyes and believed them against all else.” In the intensity of the living present he forgot the dead past—until he saw its ghosts troop like gray shadows across her face. “Love for Rothgar Lodbroksson?” she repeated, drawing back. “Then you did believe that I could love Rothgar?” Her voice rose sharply. “You believed that I followed him!” Too late he saw what he had done. “I said that I did not believe it,” he cried hastily. “What I thought at first in my bewilderment,—that could not be called belief.” Now it was the present that he had forgotten in the past, as he strove desperately to recapture the phantoms and thrust them back into their graves. But she did not seem to hear his explanation as she stood there gazing at him, her mind leaping lightning-like from point to point. “It was that which made you behave so strangely in the garden,” she said, and she spoke each phrase with a kind of breathless finality. “You thought that I—I was like those—those other women in the camp.” As he tried to take her hand she drew farther away, and stood looking at him out of eyes that were like purple shadows in her white face. It was with a little movement of anger that she came to herself at last. “And what are you thinking of me now? Do you dare to dream that the King—” Turning, she confronted the old warrior fiercely. “Thorkel Jarl, I ask you to tell the Lord of Ivarsdale as quick as you can what the King wants with me.” “That I will not do,” the Jarl said quickly. “You know no prudence, maiden. The Lord of Ivarsdale is also English; a mishap might occur if—” She flung the words at him; “I care not if it lose Canute his crown! If you will not risk it, I will tell him that the King settles to-night with Edric of Mercia and his men, and that it is to witness the punishment of my kinsmen’s murderer that he has sent for me. As for my camp-life, ask Rothgar himself, or Elfgiva, or the King—or any soldier of the host! Of them all, you alone have thought such thoughts of me.” She flung up her hands against him in a kind of heart-broken rage. “You! To whose high-mindedness I trusted everything I have!” Hiding her face, she ran from them, sobbing, into the house. CHAPTER XXXI. The Twilight of The Gods Circumspect and reserved Every man should be, And wary in trusting friends; Of the words That a man says to another He often pays the penalty. Hávamál.