But she would not be prevented from saying stern things of her royal guardian, so at last he let her finish the subject, and stood pressing her hands upon his breast, his eyes resting dreamily on her face. When she had finished, he said slowly, “Sweeting, because my mind is laboring under so many burdens that my wits are even duller than they are wont, will you not have the patience to answer one question that is not clear to me? Do you think it troublesome to tell me why it was that you said, that day in the garden—Now shake off that look, dearest; never will we speak of it again if it is not to your wish! Tell me what you meant by saying that you came into Canute’s camp because you had too much faith in Rothgar, if you despise him—since you despise him so?” Her eyes met his wonderingly. “By no means could I have said that, lord. When I left home, I knew not that Rothgar lived. The one in whom I had too much faith was the King. Because I was young and little experienced, I thought him a god; and when I came to his camp and found him a man, I thought only to escape from him. That was why I wore those clothes, Sebert—not because I liked so wild a life. That is clear to you, is it not?” He did not appear to hear her last words at all. He was repeating over and over, “The King, the King!” Suddenly he said, “Then I got that right, that it was he who summoned me to Gloucester to make sure that you had kept your secret from me also?—that he was angry with you for deceiving him?” “Yes,” she said. But as he opened his lips to put another question, she laid her finger-tip beseechingly upon them, “Sebert, my love, I beg of you let us talk no more of those days. Sometime, when we have a long time to be together, I will tell you everything that I have had in my breast and you shall show me everything that you have had in yours, but—but let us wait, sweetheart, until our happiness seems more real than our sorrow. Even yet I do not like the thought of the ‘sun-browned boy-bred wench.’” She laughed a little unsteadily at the sudden crimsoning of his face. “And I am still ashamed—and ashamed of being ashamed—that I showed you so plainly what my heart held for you... Elfgiva’s tongue has stabbed me sore... Beloved, can you not be content, for now, with knowing that I have loved no man before you and shall love none after you?” Bending, he kissed her lips with the utmost tenderness. “I am well content,” he said. And after that they spoke only of the future, when the first period of his Marshalship should be over and he should be free to take his bride back to the fields and woods of Ivarsdale, and the gray old Tower on the hill. CHAPTER XXX. When The King Takes a Queen Moderately wise Should each one be, But never over-wise; For a wise man’s heart Is seldom glad If he is all-wise who owns it. Hávamál.