but I did not think at all that she had wished ill as they wished
it, since I knew that Morfed had trained the Welsh girl to the deed
at Glastonbury.

"Ay," she said sadly. "But forgetfulness is not forgiveness. You do
not know how I carried messages between my father and uncle, when
one was in bondage and the other in hiding, so that their plans
were laid through me. I am guilty with them. Therefore I would hear
you say at least that you will try to forgive before I pass from
the world into the cloister where I may pray for them, and for you
also, if I may."

Then I said, with a great pity on me for this lady whom I had known
so proud and careless:

"Lady, I do forgive with all my heart. I do not think that you
could have stood aloof from your father, and I do not think that
you are so much to blame in all the trouble as you would seem to
make me believe. In all truth I do forgive."

She looked searchingly at me while I spoke, and what she saw in my
face was enough to tell her that she had all she needed, and with
one word of thanks she went back to the ladies, and one of them
took her from the room.

"She goes into my new nunnery at Glastonbury tomorrow, Oswald," the
queen said, "and now she will rest content. It was a good chance
that brought you here today, my Thane, for she had begged me to
send for you, and that I could hardly do, seeing that one knows not
where to find you from day to day. I could tell her truly that I
knew I could win your forgiveness: but that would not have been
enough for her, I think."

So Mara passed into the nunnery, and unless she has been one of the
veiled sisters whom one sees in their places at the time of mass, I
do not know that I have ever set eyes on her again. I do not think
that it was the saddest end for her.

CHAPTER XVII. HOW OSWALD FOUND A HOME, AND OF THE LAST PERIL OF OWEN THE
PRINCE.

All that winter, and through the spring, men toiled at the great
fortress, but Ina went back presently to Glastonbury, or to others
of his houses, after his wont, now and then riding even from far to
us to see how all went. And I was fully busy in the new province,
for we made a roll of those who owned land there, that all might be
known to the king, and that matter was set in my hand for those
reasons which had made me useful already in quieting the country.
Moreover, the years at Malmesbury had made me able to write well,
and now I was glad that I had learnt, though indeed