Thus encouraged, Alfred told all his tale, and Dunstan listened with
much emotion.

"Yet two days and I will be with you at Aescendune. Go back and comfort
thy brother; he shall indeed have my forgiveness, and happy shall I be
as an ambassador of Christ to fulfil the blessed office of restoring the
lost sheep to the fold, the prodigal to his Heavenly Father."

When Alfred returned to Aescendune he found Elfric eagerly awaiting him;
he had not been so well in the absence of his brother, and every one saw
symptoms of the coming end.

Still he seemed so happy when Alfred delivered his message that every
one remarked it, and that evening he sat up later than usual, listening
as Father Cuthbert read for the hundredth time his favourite story from
King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of the Gospels, the parable of the
prodigal son, which had filled his mind on the night after the battle;
then he spoke to his mother about past days, before a cloud came between
him and his home; and talked of his father, and of the little incidents
of early youth. Always loving, he was more so than usual that night, as
if he felt time was short in which to show a son's love.

That night his mother came, as she always came, when he was asleep, to
his chamber to gaze upon him, when she was struck by the difficulty of
his breathing; she felt alarmed when she saw the struggles he seemed to
make for breath, and saw the damp sweat upon his brow, so she called Alfred.

Alfred saw at once that his brother was seriously worse, and summoned
Father Cuthbert, who no sooner gazed upon him than he exclaimed that the
end was near.