"And if it were so, lady," replied the girl, darkly, "were not that enough to make a woman, who is at once a Christian and a slave, both despond and despair? First to love a slave--for to love other than a slave, being herself a slave were the same, as for a mortal to be enamored of a star in heaven--and then, even if license were granted to wed him she loved, which is not certain or even of usual occurrence, to be the mother of babes, to whom but one reality is secured, beyond a peradventure, the reality that they too must be slaves and wretched. But you are wrong, lady. I have not learned my own heart of late--I have known it long. I have not discovered but now that I love, nor has he whom I love. We have been betrothed this year and better." "What then? what then?" cried Guendolen, eagerly. "Will not Sir Philip consent? If that be all, dry your tears, Edith; so small a boon as that I can command by a single word." "Sir Philip heeds not such matters, lady. His bailiff _has_ consented, if that were all." "What is it, then? This scruple about babes," said Guendolen, thoughtfully. "It is sad--it is sad, indeed. Yet if you love _him_, as you say, and your life in its actual reality be not so bitter----" "No, lady, no; it is not even that. If I had scruples on that head, they have vanished; Kenric has convinced me----" "Kenric!" exclaimed Guendolen, starting erect into a sitting attitude, forgetful of her pains and bruises. "What, the brave man who saved me from the stag at the risk of his own life, who was half slain in serving me--is he--is he _your_ Kenric?" "The same," answered Edith, with the quiet accent of fixed sorrow. "And the same for whom you procured the priceless boon of liberty." An idea flashed, like the electric fluid, across the mind of Guendolen, who up to that moment had suspected nothing of the connection between her preserver and the beautiful girl before her, and who knew nothing of his grand refusal to accept even liberty itself, most inestimable of all gifts, which could not be shared by those whom he loved beyond liberty or life; and she imagined that she read the secret, and had pierced the maiden's mystery. "Can it be?" she said, sorrowfully, and seeming rather to be communing with herself, than inquiring of her companion. "Can it be that one so brave, so generous, and seemingly so noble, should be so base and abject? Oh! but these men, these men, if tale and history speak true, they are the same all and ever--false, selfish, and deceivers!" "Kenric, lady?" "And because he is free--the freeman but of the hour--he has despised thee, Edith, the slave girl? But hold thy head high, sweet one, and thy heart higher. Thou shalt be free to-morrow, girl, and the mate of his betters; it shall be thou, to-morrow, who shall repay scorn with scorn, and----"