l of gold at Pevensea out of which
you may take a double handful whenever you need it. Cnut has the
gold of three kingdoms and says you may do the same out of his
hoards. Head breaking brought you the first, and hardship the
second. Take one as you would the other, man. It is your due."

And Elfric added that the king's gift was surely out of goodness of
heart. There could be no thought of bribes now. So I took it, and
was glad thereof, for I could not ask my people for rents and dues
yet.

Elfric asked me of Uldra, as one might suppose, and was glad when
he heard of her welfare.

"I suppose that when I get back to Medehamstede her folk will want
to know how she fares in Normandy, or the like. Maybe they have
troubled the good abbess already more than enough, for she brought
her to me."

"Whose daughter was she?" I asked.

"Maybe I heard, but I have forgotten," he said. "The abbess knows.
I saw not her folk, for the sisters brought her with them with my
consent."

So I went back to Bures well content with all but one thing, and
that was what troubled me more than enough. But I knew not that to
my dying day I shall rejoice that I kept my troth to Hertha.

It was on one of those wondrous days that come in October, with
glory of sunshine and clear sky over gold and crimson of forest and
copse, that I learnt this.

I would go to Wormingford now and then to see that all was going
well with the rebuilding of Hertha's home, for Cnut's gift was
enough for that also, seeing that all one needed was at hand and
did but require setting up by skilled workers. Our priest, Father
Oswin, found me such craftsmen as I needed.

"Let me rebuild the church first, father," I had said to him when I
returned thus rich.

"Not so, my son. That is a matter which must be taken in hand
presently, and not hurriedly. Shelter first the man who shall do
it, and provide for the fatherless at Wormingford, and it will be
better done after all."

Therefore I was very busy. And on this day of which I speak I
walked in the late afternoon, and must needs turn aside into the
woods by the mere, for I had often done that of late, loving the
place for old memories the more now that Olaf came into them. It
seemed to me that I had never seen the still mere look more
wondrously beautiful than on this day, for we had had neither wind
nor rain to mar the autumn beauty of the trees, and that was
doubled by the mirror of the water.

So I lingered in t