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318 He was gone, and Maidoch entered the house. Lady Aastrid came hurriedly to meet her. “Why, child! thou dost surely seem ill. Thy face is as snow and thy hands are as ice.”

Maidoch rested her head upon Lady Aastrid’s shoulder and whispered: “He hath gone. My lord hath left me in thy care. He goes to seek King Olaf. Dear lady, he spoke of death and said I would be free; but oh! I will never be free in this world, be he living or dead, for my poor heart is bound up in his love. I did not know—I was sinful in my great longing for my own land—I did not know until he bade me farewell how desolate, how dark my life could be. Not Lord Thorgills himself, nor his life, nor his death can ever make me free again.”

“Dear, dear child,” said the Lady Aastrid, weeping softly. Then to herself: “Poor faithful Thorgills! He hath waked the woman’s soul in this child, and he hath not known the gift he hath rejected.”