But Alse did not receive him. Instead there advanced and knelt at his feet one of the most radiant young beauties his eyes had ever encountered. The violet Saxon hood fell back from her face as she raised it, revealing a sun of little curls bound by a golden fillet. The slender lifted hands, the bright parted lips, most of all the eyes, blue as lazulite and wide with innocence, seemed all as if posed for a picture of Love’s ecstasy. The King, young, and lustful, and handsome, with his strong, clean-cut face, stood the speechless one. “Welcome, lord King,” she said in a half-articulate voice, like a child murmuring a lesson. He raised and kissed her. “Welcome, wife of Athelwold!” he said, and let out a sigh like a man restored from drowning. But apart stood the dwarf, amazed and sorrowful. “She hath deceived us,” he thought. “What is to be the end?” That night was spent in feasting; and in the morning came Elfrida to her husband’s couch. Worn with fatigue and anxiety--since she had given orders that none was to approach him--he had fallen asleep at last. “Up, up, my Thane!” she cried. “The King is bent on hunting, and awaits thee in the court. Say nothing. All goes well.” She would not linger, lest, as she whispered, she should risk discovery; but, running from him, sought her bower. There listening, a hand upon her bosom, she heard the chase ride forth; and presently the dwarf stole in to her. “Thou hast done it,” he said. “The King will kill him.” She began, “Dog! Thou darest----” but, checking herself, put her hands a moment to her face, then went up and down, up and down, like one distracted. “Well, he wronged the King,” said Daukin. She stopped before him, and his soul struggled against the fascination of the blue waters. “What was that to his wrong of me?” she said passionately; and, as he gazed, he saw the waters brim. “O, Daukin!” she wept; “cannot _you_ understand me?” “Yes,” he said. “And love me still?” “I can love the truth,” he said, with a heartbroken sigh. “I have found it at last in the depths I have studied so long.” When the King returned, the sternness of his white face belied his uttered commiseration. The Thane, he told his lady, had stumbled on his own boar-spear, and met with a mortal hurt. “Long live the Queen!” said Daukin. Edgar started, and his hand went to his dagger. Elfrida stumbled forward. “No,” she said in a weak voice, “it is my dog, lord King. I will not have him killed because he barks.” Fair Rosamond A lady, accompanied by a small armed retinue, rode out of a forest glade near Woodstock, and, pausing beside the waters of the Glyme, which here came sliding in a little weir, smooth as a barrel of glass, over an artificial dam, reined in her steed, and sat gazing, in the full glow of noon, upon the scene before her.