I was a little abashed before this grave and stately maiden, who was the same, and yet not the same, as she who had been through so much danger and trial with me, and I could not find a word to say at first. Nor could she, as it seemed, and so we looked at one another until she smiled. It was only for a moment, however, for when her face lighted up thus, Relf found his voice and spoke. "I have come to thank you, lady, for saving my comrade's life yesterday," he said, taking her hand and kissing it. "I had lost a good friend but for you, he tells me." "But for the thane, your friend, I know not what would have become of us," she answered. "The thanks are from me to him, rather." "Yet I think that I owe you somewhat," Relf said, "and now I am minded to try to show that I would thank you in deed, and not in word only." He paused, and Uldra looked at me as if asking if I could throw any light on this stranger's meaning. "Relf, the Thane of Penhurst, is he who gave me shelter and care when I was hurt in a fight and a flood last winter," I said. "He has indeed been a good friend to me." "Not I," said Relf; "you fought for me. It was my wife and Sexberga, my daughter, who tended you." Now at that name, which she already knew, the maiden looked quickly away from me, and a little flush began to creep up into her face, with pleasure as it would seem. "I have heard of your daughter Sexberga already," she said to Relf with a little smile. "Why, that is well," he said. "Now, after her wedding my wife will be sorely lost for want of a companion, and I would ask you to come home to Penhurst with us, and bide there until you may seek your friends again--or as long as you wish. And glad shall we be of your help at the wedding feast." So he spoke cheerfully, trying to make all the honour come from her, as kindness to himself and his wife. But though the tears came into Uldra's eyes at the good thane's plain meaning, she was silent yet, save that she said: "I know not how to thank you for your goodwill to me." "Nay," he said; "but my wife will blame me if you come not. 'Here,' she will say, 'is the companion whom I needed, and a friend of our Redwald's, moreover, and you have not brought her.' I pray you, come with us. Do you ask her, Redwald; I am rough, and you are courtly." Then I said: "Lady, this is all that Elfric would wish for you. I cannot tell you of the great kindness that is waiting for you in the thane's home." And for answer she turned away and began to weep, and Relf could bear that not at all, and he went to her and put his arm round her, as he would have done to Sexberga, and tried to reassure her. "Why," he said, "here is nought to weep about, maiden. Maybe we are homely people, but I think that you may learn to be happier in freedom with us than here. Nay, but weep not so bitterly, you shall be as our daughter to us if you will, for Redwald's life's sake. Aye, you shall have Sexberga's own chamber and all that--"