Rosamond saw them give a great start, shudder, waver to and fro, then sit down on the steps of the dais; and she knew they were punished, but knew not how.  She rushed up to them, and catching a hand of each said—­

“Father, dear father! mother dear!  I will ask the wise woman to forgive you.”

“Oh, I am blind!  I am blind!” they cried together.  “Dark as night!  Stone blind!”

Rosamond left them, sprang down the steps, and kneeling at her feet, cried, “Oh, my lovely wise woman! do let them see.  Do open their eyes, dear, good, wise woman.”

The wise woman bent down to her, and said, so that none else could hear, “I will one day.  Meanwhile you must be their servant, as I have been yours.  Bring them to me, and I will make them welcome.”

Rosamond rose, went up the steps again to her father and mother, where they sat like statues with closed eyes, half-way from the top of the dais where stood their empty thrones, seated herself between them, took a hand of each, and was still.

All this time very few in the room saw the wise woman.  The moment she threw off her cloak she vanished from the sight of almost all who were present.  The woman who swept and dusted the hall and brushed the thrones, saw her, and the shepherd had a glimmering vision of her; but no one else that I know of caught a glimpse of her.  The shepherdess did not see her.  Nor did Agnes, but she felt her presence upon her like the beat of a furnace seven times heated.

As soon as Rosamond had taken her place between her father and mother, the wise woman lifted her cloak from the floor, and threw it again around her.  Then everybody saw her, and Agnes felt as if a soft dewy cloud had come between her and the torrid rays of a vertical sun.  The wise woman turned to the shepherd and shepherdess.

“For you,” she said, “you are sufficiently punished by the work of your own hands.  Instead of making your daughter obey you, you left her to be a slave to herself; you coaxed when you ought to have compelled; you praised when you ought to have been silent; you fondled when you ought to have punished; you threatened when you ought to have inflicted—­and there she stands, the full-grown result of your foolishness!  She is your crime and your punishment.  Take her home with you, and live hour after hour with the pale-hearted disgrace you call your daughter.  What she is, the worm at her heart has begun to teach her.  When life is no longer endurable, come to me.

“Madam,” said the shepherd, “may I not go with you now?”

“You shall,” said the wise woman.

“Husband! husband!” cried the shepherdess, “how are we two to get home without you?”

“I will see to that,” said the wise woman.  “But little of home you will find it until you have come to me.  The king carried you hither, and he shall carry you back.  But your husband shall not go with you.  He cannot now if he would.”