Aye! It was good to be at home once more--even in the land where _my_ woman was bearing children to another man.
"We spent a few happy days, I and my mother, together.

Then--the joy of hope fulfilled being sometimes a swifter harbinger to another world than the heaviest load of sorrow--she passed, without pain or sickness, smiling, in her sleep; she passed--leaving my home desolate indeed.
"Not having known of my betrothal to thee, because of the old feud between our families, and my reluctance to cross her wish that I should wed Alfrida, thy name was not spoken between us; but I learned from her that my cousin 'Frida lay dying at her manor, nigh to Chester, of some lingering disease contracted in eastern lands." "With the first stirrings of Spring in forest and pasture, I felt moved to ride south to the Court, and report my return to the King; yet waited, strangely loath to go abroad where any turn of the road might bring me face to face with Humphry.

I doubted, should we meet, if I could pass, without slaying him, the man who had stolen my betrothed from me.

So I stayed in my own domain, bringing things into order, working in the armoury, and striving by hard exercise to throttle the grim demon of despair.
"April brought a burst of early summer; and, on the first day of May, I set off for Windsor.
"Passing through Carnforth on my way, I found the town keeping high holiday.

I asked the reason, and was told of a Tourney now in progress in the neighbourhood, to which the Earl had that morning ridden in state, accompanied by his Countess, who indeed was chosen Queen of Beauty, and was to sit enthroned, attended by her little daughter, two tiny sons acting as pages.
"A sudden mad desire came on me, to look upon thy face again; to see thee with the man who stole thee from me; with the children, who should have been mine own.
"Ten minutes later, I rode on to the field.