queen," she answered, laughing; "she
is above that foolishness. No, but there is somewhat more."

"Then," said I, thinking that this was fancy, "it will be some
trouble of state which is at the bottom of her anxiety. That none
of us can mend."

"It may be that," she said; "but it is some heavy trouble. I have
never seen her so downcast until yesterday. It is a sudden thing."

There we left the subject, and I thought little more of it until
the next morning, which was that of the day before we started. It
had become a custom that I should wait on the king at his first
rising, when he had most leisure to talk with me, and this time I
found the queen with him in his chamber. She looked sad and
anxious, as I thought.

"Wilfrid," she said to me when the fitting greetings were over,
"you are a stranger here, and no thought of policy will come into
your mind. Tell me truly what you think of this; it may be that
your word will have some weight with my son."

Ethelbert smiled, but it was not quite his usual untroubled smile
at all.

"It is not fair to ask Wilfrid," he said; "maybe he puts much faith
in these omens."

"No, but he is of Wessex," she said. "He cares naught for alliance
or court, or for any of those things which blind our eyes. I want
him to answer me as if I were just a franklin's wife who is in
doubt.

"Listen, then, if you will."

She turned to me with a sort of appeal, and spoke quietly, though I
saw that she was almost weeping.

"Last night I dreamed a dream, and in it I waited in the church
here for the bells to ring for the wedding of my son and
Etheldrida, whom he loves. It was in my mind that all the good folk
would come in their best array, and that so we should sing a great
'Te Deum' for the happiness of all. And indeed there was a voice
from the belfry--but it was of the great bell alone, as of a knell
for the dead. And indeed it seemed that the people came--but they
came softly and weeping, and they were clad all in black. And then
they sang--but it was the psalm 'De Profundis.'"

I think that I paled, for I minded those other things which Erling
had told me. The lady, who looked in my face, saw it, and she grew
white also--whiter than she had been before.

"Lady," I stammered, "I have no wit to read these things. It were
well to ask the good bishop, for he is wise."

"Ay, too wise," she said. "I would hear simplicity."

Then Ethelbert rose up and set his arm round his mother very
g