So I went my way, and saw to one or two things, and sat me down in
the room off the hall that had been Owen's, and presently Erpwald
came in, and I saw that he was in trouble.

"Well," I said, "how goes the quarrel?"

"I am a fool," he replied promptly. "The lady should be proud of
the affair, and the more it is talked of the better she should like
it. You are right in saying that it cannot be stopped. Why, there
is a gleeman down the street this minute singing the deeds of
Oswald and Elfrida. As for the vow you made, the ealdorman says
that it could not have been better done. Forgive me for troubling
you about it at all."

He held out his broad hand, and for a moment I hesitated about
taking it. He bore his father's name, but in a flash it came to me
that I was wrong. We were both children when the ill deed was
wrought, and I was no heathen to hold a blood feud against all the
family of the wrongdoer. He did not even know that one of us lived,
and, as the king had told me, I knew that he was prepared to make
amends.

So I took his hand frankly, and he had not noticed the moment's
slowness or, if he did, took it for the passing of vexation from my
mind.

"You will laugh at me again," he said, "but now I am in hot water
in all sooth. The lady will not speak to me at all."

I did laugh. I sat down on the edge of the table and tried to stop