These, however, one after another, gradually forsook him, and, finally, the fallen and deserted monarch was left alone.
In fact, it was a relief to him at last to be left alone; for they who remained around him became in the end a burden instead of affording him protection.

They were too few to fight, and too many to be easily concealed.

Alfred withdrew himself from them, thinking that, under the circumstances in which he was now placed, he was justified in seeking his own personal safety alone.

He had a wife, whom he married when he was about twenty years old; but she was not with him now, though she afterward joined him.

She was in some other place of retreat.