ard that, and I thought that he must
be badly smitten already.

"Well, I will go and ask the ealdorman all about it," he said.
"Where shall I find you in an hour's time?"

"In my quarters," I answered; "but, of course, if you want to fight
me you will have to send a friend to talk to me."

"I will send the ealdorman himself."

"Best not, for he is the man who is charged with the stopping of
these affairs if he hears of them. Any atheling you meet will help
you in such a matter. It is an honour to be asked to do so. But
don't ever ask me to be your second if you have another affair, for
I also have to hinder these meetings if I can."

"Is there any one else I must not ask?" he said in a bewildered
way.

"Best not ask the abbot," I said, and I could not help smiling.

"Now you are laughing at me, and that is too bad. How am I to know
your court ways?"

"Well, you will not have to fight me unless you really want to pick
a quarrel. So it does not matter. Get to the bottom of the
question, and then come and talk it over, and we will see what is
to be done."

He nodded and left me, and I had a good chuckle over the whole
business. It was not likely that Elfrida had set him on me, in the
least; but I suppose he had heard some jest of her father's, who
was one of those who will work anything that pleases them to the
last.

So I went my way, and saw to one or two things, and sat me down in
the room off the hall that had been Owen's, and presently Erpwald
came in, and I saw that he was in trouble.

"Well," I said, "how goes the quarrel?"

"I am a fool," he replied promptly. "The lady should be proud of
the affair, and the more it is talked of the better she should like
it. You are right in saying that it cannot be stopped. Why, there
is a gleeman down the street this minute singing the deeds of
Oswald and Elfrida. As for the vow you made, the ealdorman says
that it could not have been better done. Forgive me for troubling
you about it at all."

He held out his broad hand, and for a moment I hesitated about
taking it. He bore his father's name, but in a flash it came to me
that I was wrong. We were both children when the ill deed was
wrought, and I was no heathen to hold a blood feud against all the
family of the wrongdoer. He did not even know that one of us lived,
and, as the king had told me, I knew that he was prepared to make
amends.

So I took his hand frankly, and he had not noticed the moment's
slowne