louded.

"I am afraid of her," she said at last. "She is terrible to me, and
why I cannot tell. She is naught but kind to me. All the ladies
fear her but one or two who are her close friends."

"Well, you will soon be away from her," I said.

"I do not know," she answered, glancing round her. "She has said
that she would fain keep me here. What she says she means, mostly."

"Then," said I boldly, "I shall have to come and take you away
myself."

Whereon she laughed a little, but did not seem displeased at the
thought.

"Stay," I said. "You have that arrowhead I gave you?"

"An I have not lost it. I will search."

"Send it me if you need my help," I said; "then naught shall hinder
me from coming to you."

"Spoken paladin-wise," she answered, laughing at me. "Mayhap that
bit of flint shall chase you round Wessex in vain, and meanwhile
the ogre will have devoured me."

But she set her white hand on my arm for a moment, as if in thanks.
Then she started and looked at me in the face wonderingly. She felt
the steel.

"Wilfrid," she whispered, "why do you wear mail under your tunic?"

I told her plainly; otherwise it would have surely seemed that it
was a niddering sort of habit of mine, and unworthy of a warrior in
a king's friendly hall. And there was no laughter in her fair face
as she heard, but fear for me. Like Erling, she seemed to see peril
around us.

"Listen," she said. "The princess dreams that she is to be wedded,
and that even before the altar her bridal robes grow black and the
flowers of her wreath fall withered, while the strown blooms under
her feet turn to ashes on her path."

"More dreams!" I said bitterly. "We are beset with them, and they
are all ill!"

"Have you also visions?" she asked, almost faintly.

"No; unless you are one, and I must wake to find myself back in
bleak Flanders, or fighting for my life in Portland race again. And
I pray that so it may not be; for if I must lose the sight of you,
I am lonely indeed."

"Nay, hush," she said; "not now. Wait till all is well for you and
for the king--and then, maybe; but I pray you have a care of
Gymbert."

Now I would have told her that I had no fear of him, and mayhap I
should have heeded her other words little enough. But at that
moment Father Selred came back and beckoned to us, and silently we
went after him. The king had seen him and called to him.

Then and there I was made known to the princess, and I thought her
strang