"Will my royal lord be graciously pleased to answer me one question
before I reply to that which he has asked of me?" said the Saxon lady.

"Speak on," replied King Athelstane.

"Is it just that the innocent should suffer for the guilty, O King?"
said she.

"Assuredly not," replied the king.

"Then, wherefore," said the Saxon lady, "hast thou deprived my son,
Wilfrid, of his inheritance, for the fault of his father? Cendric has
already paid the forfeit of his life for having unhappily leagued
himself with a traitor who plotted against thy royal life; but this
boy, his guiltless orphan, did never offend thee! Why, then, should he
be doomed to poverty and contempt?"

"It was the crime of the traitor Cendric, not my will, that deprived
his son of his inheritance," said the king.

"I acknowledge it with grief, my royal lord," said Ermengarde, for that
was the name of the Saxon widow; "but it rests with thy good pleasure
to restore to his innocent child the forfeit lands of the unhappy
Cendric."

"Is this boy the son of the traitor Cendric?" asked the king, placing
his hand on the head of the weeping Wilfrid.

"He is, my gracious lord," replied Ermengarde. "He has been carefully