Now that was a fair and pleasant ride over the Downs and among the forest paths through Sussex, and I look back on it as the brightest time that I had had in all the long years of trouble. The joy of going back to my old home at Bures had been clouded with the knowledge of loss, and with the sight of the trail of war. But here were none of these things. We rode with twenty housecarles of Relf's behind us, and it was a new thing to me that I should see the wayside folk run out into the trackway to see us pass; that the farm thralls in the fields should but rise up, straightening stiffened backs and laughing, and stay their work for a moment to watch us; that no man who met us should ask with anxious face, "What news of the Danes?" New it was, and most pleasant to Uldra also, for she had come through all the harried land, where the click of steel or the glint of armour had bidden the poor folk fly in terror, so that one rode through silent and deserted villages, and past farms where nought but the dogs told of life about the place. And that was what I had seen over all England since Swein of Denmark landed, so long ago. Men will hardly believe it now. Relf could hardly believe us as we told him. Yet today, were I to ride into an East Saxon village shouting "The Danes!" there are men who would cast down tools and all else that they were busied with, and clutch at the weapons that rust on the wall before thought could come to them. For the terror of these years cannot pass from England yet while any man is alive who knew it. Now there was another pleasure for me, and that was to watch Uldra growing brighter and happier day by day. It was wonderful to me to see this, and with me she was ever frank and open, never wearying of speaking of our former journey and its troubles, for we could smile at them now. And Relf grew very fond of her in those few days, as one might see. Nor do I know how anyone could help doing so. Even the rough housecarles would watch for a chance of doing some little service for her. And yet, as I have said, Uldra was not the fairest maiden that I had seen. Men are apt to think that the fairest must ever be the best, and a man learns that it is not so only by degrees, maybe. And when I looked on Uldra's face it began to seem to me the best that could be, and ever to me it would seem that I knew it well. For some look of hers that should be new to me was not new--I had expected it in some way, and should have wondered not to see it cross her face. And so in gesture and in word also. So that she seemed already well known to me, and why this was I could not say, and at times it troubled me as puzzling things will. But, all the same, I loved to find myself so puzzled.