All happiness and glory to them both; and when a
child was born to them he would be its godfather, and if happily by that
time there was a queen, she should be its godmother.
Then he recalled their happy boyhood's days in East Anglia, that joyful
time when they first hunted and had many a mishap and fell from their
horses when they pursued hare and deer and bustard in the wide open
stretches of sandy country; and in the autumn and winter months when
they were wild-fowling in the great level flooded lands where the geese
and all wild-fowl came in clouds and myriads. And now he laughed and now
his eyes grew moist at the recollection of the irrecoverable glad days.
Little time was left for sleep; yet they were ready early next morning
for the day's great boar-hunt in the forest, and only when the king was
about to mount his horse did Elfrida make her appearance. She came out
to him from the door, not richly dressed now, but in a simple white
linen robe and not an ornament on her except that splendid crown of the
red-gold hair on her head. And her face too was almost colourless now,
and grave and still. She brought wine in a golden cup and gave it to the
king, and he once more fixed his eyes on her and for some moments they
continued silently gazing, each in that fixed gaze seeming to devour the
secrets of the other's soul.
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