l, came into the hall.

"You speak sadly together," she said, looking from one to the
other, and noting that her mother's wheel was idle.

"It is no happy tale that our friend has told me," the lady said,
and so told her all that she had learned from me.

Then Sexberga clasped her hands together, and said:

"Shall I ever forget the time when we fled to Pevensea before the
outlaws? And to think of that terror--if it had lasted for days and
weeks--and months maybe, as it would for your Hertha. Could you in
no way seek her, Redwald?"

She knew nothing of the ways of wartime and of the troubles which
must come to men who are weapon bearers, and I tried to tell her
how I could by no means have sought Hertha, and how, had that been
possible, and had I found her, I could hardly have brought her even
to London in safety. I told her of good Bishop Elfheah and his
death, and many more things, and yet she said:

"I think you have been over long in seeking her. And she has been
in hiding for four years past!"

Now that was hardly fair, but what could she think else? Yet in my
mind was the certainty now that I might have had no easy task to
win this kindly maiden, who so little cared that I was bound
elsewhere. Now I will not say that that altogether pleased me, for
no man likes to learn that a fair maiden who is pleasant to his
eyes has no like feeling for himself; which is nought but vanity
after all. So when I turned this over in my mind I knew that I
ought to be glad that she cared nothing, for so was the less
trouble in the end, and I found also that what a man ought to be is
not the same always as what a man is.

So I made no answer, and Sexberga went on:

"Now must you seek her as soon as you can, for that is your part as
a good warrior--a good knight, as Father Anselm will say when he
hears thereof."

"Surely I shall go back this spring with our earl," I said. "Then
shall I find her, for she and her nurse will come back from their
hiding when peace is sure."

"Aye; and you will not know her!" said Sexberga, clapping her hands
and laughing. "She is a woman grown, as I am, by this time!"

Then was gone my little playfellow, and in her place, in my
thoughts, must stand a maiden with eyes of sad reproach that must
be ever on me. And maybe in her heart would be fear of me, and of
what I had become, as she was bound to me.

And now Sexberga began to weave fancies of how I should meet this
long-lost bride of mine,