"I suppose that when I get back to Medehamstede her folk will want to know how she fares in Normandy, or the like. Maybe they have troubled the good abbess already more than enough, for she brought her to me." "Whose daughter was she?" I asked. "Maybe I heard, but I have forgotten," he said. "The abbess knows. I saw not her folk, for the sisters brought her with them with my consent." So I went back to Bures well content with all but one thing, and that was what troubled me more than enough. But I knew not that to my dying day I shall rejoice that I kept my troth to Hertha. It was on one of those wondrous days that come in October, with glory of sunshine and clear sky over gold and crimson of forest and copse, that I learnt this. I would go to Wormingford now and then to see that all was going well with the rebuilding of Hertha's home, for Cnut's gift was enough for that also, seeing that all one needed was at hand and did but require setting up by skilled workers. Our priest, Father Oswin, found me such craftsmen as I needed. "Let me rebuild the church first, father," I had said to him when I returned thus rich. "Not so, my son. That is a matter which must be taken in hand presently, and not hurriedly. Shelter first the man who shall do it, and provide for the fatherless at Wormingford, and it will be better done after all." Therefore I was very busy. And on this day of which I speak I walked in the late afternoon, and must needs turn aside into the woods by the mere, for I had often done that of late, loving the place for old memories the more now that Olaf came into them. It seemed to me that I had never seen the still mere look more wondrously beautiful than on this day, for we had had neither wind nor rain to mar the autumn beauty of the trees, and that was doubled by the mirror of the water. So I lingered in that place where Olaf and I had been so nearly slain, thinking of that night and of many other days, and then I heard a footstep coming through the wood, and turned to see who it might be, for I had never met any other in the haunted place. And there came towards me slowly a white-robed maiden who looked steadfastly at me, saying nought. And I thought that surely she was the White Lady of the Mere. The shadows flickered across her face and dress, and in her hand she bore a basket with crimson leaves and the like. And then I saw that surely this was Hertha coming to meet me as in the old days when I had waited for her here--Hertha grown older, and changed; but yet as I saw her here in the old place one could not but know her, and half I cried out her name, and then stayed with my heart beating fast. For as she came into the clearing and was close to me she held out her hands, and the basket fell at her feet, and lo! it was Uldra, whom I loved--and Uldra was Hertha--and I had in my arms all that I longed for, and my trouble was gone for evermore.