"Fool!" said the miserly prelate, "fool! if we do so, and the Norman
conquer, what become of our abbacies and convent lands? The Duke wars
against Harold, not England. If he slay Harold----"

"What then?"

"The Atheling is left us yet. Stay we here and guard the last prince
of the House of Cerdic," whispered Stigand, and he swept on.

In the chamber in which Edward had breathed his last, his widowed
Queen, with Aldyth, her successor, and Githa and some other ladies,
waited the decision of the council. By one of the windows stood,
clasping each other by the hand, the fair young bride of Gurth and the
betrothed of the gay Leofwine. Githa sate alone, bowing her face over
her hands--desolate; mourning for the fate of her traitor son; and the
wounds, that the recent and holier death of Thyra had inflicted, bled
afresh. And the holy lady of Edward attempted in vain, by pious
adjurations, to comfort Aldyth, who, scarcely heeding her, started
ever and anon with impatient terror, muttering to herself, "Shall I
lose this crown too?"

In the council-hall debate waxed warm,--which was the wiser, to meet
William at once in the battle-field, or to delay till all the forces
Harold might expect (and which he had ordered to be levied, in his
rapid march from York) could swell his host?

"If we retire before the enemy," said Gurth, "leaving him in a strange
land, winter approaching, his forage will fail. He will scarce dare
to march upon London: if he does, we shall be better prepared to