"And why, Harold?"

"Oh, Edith, why?" murmured Harold; and his thought added, "she knows
not, poor child, that in that mockery of kinship the Church sets its
ban on our bridals."

He turned, and chid his dogs fiercely as they gambolled in rough glee
round their fair friend.

The hounds crouched at the feet of Edith; and Edith looked in mild
wonder at the troubled face of the Earl.

"Thine eyes rebuke me, Edith, more than my words the hounds!" said
Harold, gently. "But there is quick blood in my veins; and the mind
must be calm when it would control the humour. Calm was my mind,
sweet Edith, in the old time, when thou wert an infant on my knee, and
wreathing, with these rude hands, flower-chains for thy neck like the
swan's down, I said, 'The flowers fade, but the chain lasts when love
weaves it.'"

Edith again bent her face over the crouching hounds. Harold gazed on
her with mournful fondness; and the bird still sung and the squirrel
swung himself again from bough to bough. Edith spoke first:

"My godmother, thy sister, hath sent for me, Harold, and I am to go to
the Court to-morrow. Shalt thou be there?"

"Surely," said Harold, in an anxious voice, "surely, I will be there!
So my sister hath sent for thee: wittest thou wherefore?"