wonder at his leaving after it had sounded."

For a quarter of an hour we walked to and fro in the wood, down one
path and up another. Then we thought that we might be following the
priest round the wood as he looked for us, and we dared not call.
The watch on the ramparts was set already. Now the loneliness of
the wood had made us bold, and we thought we had best go one each
way, and so make sure that we should find Selred if he were here.

At that time we were at the far corner of the wood, which was
square, with a path all round it and one each way across. It was a
favourite walk of Offa's during summer, men told me.

Erling turned to the left and I to the right, and we walked fast
away from each other. It was getting very dim in these overarched
paths under the great trees, but not so dim that one could not see
fairly well if any figure came down the way. There was no wind to
speak of, and it was all very silent. One could hear the noises
from the palace plainly at times, and in one place the red light
from the hall shone from a high window through the trees. Just at
this time the clouds fled from off the face of the moon, and it was
light, with that strange brightness that comes of dying day and
brightening night mingled.

I came to the corner where my path turned, and before me there was
a figure, as it were of some one who had just turned into the wood
from toward the ramparts. The way by which Selred and I came here
last night was there. And it was surely the cassocked priest
himself, though I could not see his face. I hurried toward him with
a little word of low greeting which he could hardly have heard. My
foot caught a dry twig in the path, and it cracked loudly, and with
that the figure stopped suddenly and half turned away.

Then I said, "Stay, father; it is but I."

And with that came a little cry from the figure, and it turned and
came swiftly to me.

It was Hilda herself, and how she came here alone thus I could not
guess. She had on a long black cloak which was like enough to the
garb of the chaplain to deceive me at first in the dim light, so
that I made no movement to meet her. I think that frightened her
for the moment, for she stayed, as if she doubted whether I were
indeed he whose voice she thought she knew, until I spoke her name
and went toward her.

And then in a moment she had sought the safety of my arms, and was
weeping as if she would never stop; while I tried to stay her
fears,