ely sad for one so fair, when she was not speaking. She
looked wistfully on Hilda and on me, as if she knew how we had
spoken, and smiled; and then her face was as the face of a saint in
some painted evangel, such as Carl had in his churches, still and
sweet.

But Ethelbert was bright and cheerful as ever; and he bade me see
him home to his apartment, for he would talk with me. And I thought
rightly that as he had spoken in the Thetford garden of Etheldrida,
and as he had also spoken with me more than once on the road
hither, so he had much to say of her now.

So across the glades passed the princess and Hilda with the priest,
and with them the brightness went from the sunset for us two, I
think. We waited for a few minutes, and then followed slowly,
saying little. We had each our own thoughts.

CHAPTER XI. HOW ETHELBERT THE KING WENT TO HIS REST.

Now it becomes needful that I should tell where Ethelbert was
lodged, for I had not been to his apartments yet.

Across the upper end of the great hall there was a long building
set, and this was divided into three uneven parts. From the hall
one entered it by the door behind the king's high seat on the dais,
whence I had seen Offa and his guest come last night; and then one
found that the midmost of these divisions was a sort of council
chamber, lighted by a window in the opposite wall, and with a door
on the right and left at either end. That on the right led to the
largest division, where were the king's own chamber and the queen's
bower. Other buildings had been added to this end; and it had its
own entrance for the queen from the courtyards, as I knew, for it
was behind the church and priest's lodging where they had bestowed
me.

The door from the council chamber to the left led to the smallest
division of the cross building, and there were two chambers for
such honoured guest as Ethelbert. One could only reach these
chambers from the council room, and they had no private way into
the courtyard. It seemed that the guest hall, which was built
against the great hall to its left, ran back to the walls of this
end of the cross building, for there was a heavily-barred low
doorway, which could lead nowhere else, in the wall of the outer
living room. The only other door was that of the bedchamber, and
that was opposite the entrance.

Pleasant and quiet chambers these were; for the noise of the hall
could not reach them and their windows were set to the westward,