also said that this would be an informal
visit to a friend, that he would go alone with some of his servants and
huntsmen and ride there one day, hunt the next day and return to
Salisbury on the third day. And a little later, when the day of his
visit was fixed on, Athelwold returned in haste with an anxious mind to
his castle.

Now his hard task and the most painful moment of his life had come.
Alone with Elfrida in her chamber he cast himself down before her, and
with his bowed head resting on her knees, made a clean breast of the
whole damning story of the deceit he had practised towards the king in
order to win her for himself. In anguish and shedding tears he implored
her forgiveness, begging her to think of that irresistible power of love
she had inspired in him, which would have made it worse than death to
see her the wife of another--even of Edgar himself--his friend, the
brother of his soul. Then he went on to speak of Edgar, who was of a
sweet and lovable nature, yet capable of a deadly fury against those who
offended him; and this was an offence he would take more to heart than
any other; he would be implacable if he once thought that he had been
wilfully deceived, and she only could now save them from certain
destruction. For now it seemed to him that Edgar had conceived a
suspicion that the account he had of her was not wholly true, which was
that she was a handsome woman but not surpassingly beautiful as had been
reputed, not graceful, not charming in manner and conversation. She
could save them by justifying his description of her--by using a woman's
art to lessen instead of enhancing her natural beauty, by putting away
her natural charm and power to fascinate all who approached her.

Thus he pleaded, praying for mercy, even as a captive prays to his
conqueror for life, and never once daring to lift his bowed head to look
at her face; while she sat motionless and silent, not a word, not a
sigh, escaping her; and she was like a woman carved in stone, with knees
of stone on which his head rested.

Then, at length, exhausted with his passionate pleading and frightened
at her silence and deadly stillness, he raised his head and looked up at
her face to behold it radiant and smiling. Then, looking down lovingly
into his eyes, she raised her hands to her head, and loosening the great
mass of coiled tresses let them fall over him, covering his head and
shoulders and back as with a splendid mantle of shining r