d his voice and spoke.

"I have come to thank you, lady, for saving my comrade's life
yesterday," he said, taking her hand and kissing it. "I had lost a
good friend but for you, he tells me."

"But for the thane, your friend, I know not what would have become
of us," she answered. "The thanks are from me to him, rather."

"Yet I think that I owe you somewhat," Relf said, "and now I am
minded to try to show that I would thank you in deed, and not in
word only."

He paused, and Uldra looked at me as if asking if I could throw any
light on this stranger's meaning.

"Relf, the Thane of Penhurst, is he who gave me shelter and care
when I was hurt in a fight and a flood last winter," I said. "He
has indeed been a good friend to me."

"Not I," said Relf; "you fought for me. It was my wife and
Sexberga, my daughter, who tended you."

Now at that name, which she already knew, the maiden looked quickly
away from me, and a little flush began to creep up into her face,
with pleasure as it would seem.

"I have heard of your daughter Sexberga already," she said to Relf
with a little smile.

"Why, that is well," he said. "Now, after her wedding my wife will
be sorely lost for want of a companion, and I would ask you to come
home to Penhurst with us, and bide there until you may seek your
friends again--or as long as you wish. And glad shall we be of your
help at the wedding feast."

So he spoke cheerfully, trying to make all the honour come from
her, as kindness to himself and his wife. But though the tears came
into Uldra's eyes at the good thane's plain meaning, she was silent
yet, save that she said:

"I know not how to thank you for your goodwill to me."

"Nay," he said; "but my wife will blame me if you come not. 'Here,'
she will say, 'is the companion whom I needed, and a friend of our
Redwald's, moreover, and you have not brought her.' I pray you,
come with us. Do you ask her, Redwald; I am rough, and you are
courtly."

Then I said:

"Lady, this is all that Elfric would wish for you. I cannot tell
you of the great kindness that is waiting for you in the thane's
home."

And for answer she turned away and began to weep, and Relf could
bear that not at all, and he went to her and put his arm round her,
as he would have done to Sexberga, and tried to reassure her.

"Why," he said, "here is nought to weep about, maiden. Maybe we are
homely people, but I think that you may learn to be happier in
freedom with u