ld
both his hands in hers; to me also, amid the shouting of the multitude,
came an under current of happy song: 'Oh! truly, very truly, my noblest,
a hundred years will not be long after this.' 'Hush, Ella, dearest, for
talking makes the time speed; think only.'

"Pressed close to each other, as I saw it, their bosoms heaved--but I
looked away--alas! when I looked again, I saw nought but the stately
stranger knight, descending, hand in hand, with the queen, flushed with
joy and triumph, and the people scattering flowers before them.

"And that was long ago, very long ago." So he ceased; then Osric, one of
the two younger men, who had been sitting in awe-struck silence all this
time, said, with eyes that dared not meet Giles's, in a terrified half
whisper, as though he meant not to speak, "How long?" Giles turned round
and looked him full in the face, till he dragged his eyes up to his own,
then said, "More than a hundred years ago."

So they all sat silent, listening to the roar of the south-west wind; and
it blew the windows so, that they rocked in their frames.

Then suddenly, as they sat thus, came a knock at the door of the house;
so Hugh bowed his head to Osric, to signify that he should go and open
the door; so he arose, trembling, and went.

And as he opened the door the wind blew hard against him, and blew
something white against his face, then blew it away again, and his face
was blanched, even to his lips; but he plucking up heart of grace, looked
out, and there he saw, standing with her face upturned in speech to him,
a wonderfully beautiful woman, clothed from her throat till over her feet
in long white raiment, ungirt, unbroidered, and with a veil, that was
thrown off from her face, and hung from her head, streaming out in the
blast of the wind: which veil was what had struck against his face:
beneath her veil her golden hair streamed out too, and with the veil, so
that it touched his face now and then. She was very fair, but she did
not look young either, because of her statue-like features. She spoke to
him slowly and queenly; "I pray you give me shelter in your house for an
hour, that I may rest, and so go on my journey again." He was too much
terrified to answer in words, and so only bowed his head: and she swept
past him in stately wise to the room where the others sat, and he
followed her, trembling.

A cold shiver ran through the other men when she entered and bowed low to
them, and they