including several abbots and bishops.

Theodred betrayed great astonishment.

'What meanest thou?' he asked.

'I mean that there is more in this matter than is at present understanded of thee,' said De Guader. 'Perhaps some insight into my own standpoint would best help thee to the whole question.'

The almoner assumed an attitude of respectful attention.

'Thou dost me great honour, noble earl,' he said. 'Nevertheless I must protest that as a simple priest I had rather keep to matters more within my province.'

'These matters must be within thy province, since thy guidance will be asked by the noble demoiselle whose part in them is of such import,' urged De Guader; and the priest sighed deeply, for he had a great love for the gentle girl whose adviser he must needs be in this the chief step of her young life. He saw nothing but strife before her, and was sorely perplexed as to whether he should forward her happiness, or, still more, her spiritual welfare, by aiding or hindering the suit of the turbulent man who was thus seeking to win him to his side, and whom he scarcely knew whether to abhor for his part at Senlac, or to love as the son of Ralph the Staller. Certes De Guader's show of contrition had strangely moved him, and the bruised and bleeding patriotism which was his strongest passion waked into painful life at the sight.

'Thou knowest,' said Earl Ralph, 'how, when my noble father, Ralph the Staller, died, Earl Godwin, in his hate of the Normans, or any from across the straits, worked with the blessed King Eadward against my Breton mother and myself, her stripling son, or rather, I should say, so wearied him out with complaints against us, made by his daughter Eadgyth, the king's wife, that at last the good king gave ear to a trumped-up story of treasonable practices on our innocent parts, and took my father's lands from his widow and orphan, so that we had to go beyond the sea to my mother's estates in Bretagne.'

'I have heard a version of the matter,' said Theodred—'somewhat differing!' he added, under his breath.

'Canst thou wonder, then, that my love for Harold Godwinsson was not overflowing? the more so as he claimed for himself those dear lands of Norfolk and Suffolk, where my boyhood had been passed. Canst thou wonder that, when he broke his oath to William of Normandy, whom he had sworn not to hinder in his claims to the English throne,—sworn, as thou knowest, on the most sacred relics'—

Theodred groaned. 'Harold knew not that the relics were there till after he had sworn,' he murmured.

'An Englishman's word should be as good as his oath, thou hast said it,' rejoined the earl. 'Canst thou wonder, I ask, that I ranged myself under the banner of the leader whose accolade had given me knighthood to win back those lands of my father's?'

'How couldst thou? How couldst thou fight thy father's countrymen, even to win back thy father's lands?' cried the priest, with irrepressible emotion.

Ralph sprang up and paced about the room. 'Nay, I would give my right hand I had not done it,' he said; 'but,' he added bitterly, 'I am sufficiently punished! After all my valour and manifold services, the haughty Bastard deems me not good enough to become his kinsman, and insults me by forbidding me the hand of his kinswoman.'

His face was dark with scorn, and the peculiar gleam of green was in his eyes which gave so strange an expression to his anger, while the level brows met above them. Evidently wounded pride had more to do with his repentance than patriotic contrition.

But it was not convenient to admit so much even to himself. 'Blood is stronger than water, in good sooth,' he continued, 'and my father's blood rebels in my veins when I see the hungry Normans ousting staunch English families from their holdings, and revelling in the fat of the land. I had not thought of all that must follow the setting of William on the throne, for I dreamt not that Harold's following had been so strong, or that the tussle would be so bitter. And now that William is away, the curs snuffle and snarl and tear the quarry like hounds without a huntsman, while Hereford and I, through his silly jealousy, have our hands tied, and are powerless to keep order in the land. I tell thee it is galling beyond endurance to see the base churls, whom never a knight would have spoken to in Normandy but to give them an order, ruffling it with the best, and strutting as they had been born nobles, lording it over high-born English dames and damsels, whose fathers and husbands they have slain, and whose fortunes they are wasting in riot!'