My lady had indeed grounds for beseeching help of him: her churls were unruly, and who could rede the Abbess so well as the Earl? Howsoever, within the sisterhood was there great tattle of talk, and light hinting anent their two names. I but waited, and prayed, feeling sharp woe, and sorrowed in my heart--Mary forgive me!--as much for him as for her. Then one day late in June, the Lady Abbess rode forth, with only a band of weapon-bearing churls, to Hereford, where Sweyn the Earl then dwelt. A week's stay made she there, then rode back again to her Abbey. No more was she the woman that she had been--even Algive the fair, sparkling as a beam of the sun. Wan as the dead was she now, with tight-drawn lips. All day long would she walk up and down the cloister, up and down the garden paths, oft-times wringing her hands together. The evil mutterings grew, and tongues waxed ever louder and bolder; and some sisters forbore not openly to cast gibes at their Abbess almost before her back was turned. I beguiled them as well as I could to leave chatter and spend themselves in healthful work, for it was hay-harvest-tide. On a day early in August, the eleventh day, we bore in our last load of hay. I mind me well of that eleventh of August--sultriest day of all that sultry month: the lift bright as glass, and cloudless altogether until the hour of sun-setting. All day long we laboured in the heat, staying only for our holy offices, the which were soon said under the roof-tree of heaven; and every sister, yea, even the Abbess Algive herself, worked as lustily as the stoutest churl. All was done at early even; the great wains rolled home to the barns, and we passed in thankful procession to our church, and there sang vespers, as well as we might for our parched throats. The evening meal was spread in the hall of the convent: each nun stood beside her stool at the board--thinking, one and all, I trow, of white wheaten bread, and cool cider, and eke of dreamless slumber: at the board's head, the Abbess had but now beckoned to Godmund the Priest that he should ask blessing on our food, when there arose a loud clamour without, such as made even the drowsiest to start, and we heard the voice of the portress, angry and shrill. Then one threw open the door of the hall, and there upon the threshold stood Earl Sweyn Godwinson, and behind him his house-carles, twenty dauntless men of the Danes. Earl Sweyn stepped within the hall, up to where the Abbess was. "My lady," he cried, before us all, "here am I. Come thou with me!" Abbess Algive would not meet his gaze. She strove a little to speak, and a whisper came. "Lord Earl----" Sweyn kept his glowing eyes upon her until at last she raised her eyes to his. Then: "Sweyn, Sweyn," quoth she, and went to him, putting both her hands into his hands. She would have withdrawn them indeed, but he caught her about the body, and laughing a little, bore her shoulder-high from her convent hall.