"Alas! it is too bad. Why has he not told thee the whole truth? Woe is me! the light of mine eyes is taken from me. I shall never see thee again."
"That is in God's hands."
"How good thou hast grown, my boy! Thou didst not talk like this when thou camest home from the castle."
"Well, perhaps I have learnt better;" and he sighed, for there was a reproach, as if the old dame had said, "Is Saul also amongst the prophets?"
"But, my boy," she continued, "is this all? Did not Wulfnoth—I mean Father Alphege—tell thee more than this?"
"What more could he tell me?"
She rocked herself to and fro.
"I must tell him; but oh, my vow——"
"Osric, my child, my bonnie boy, thou dost not even yet know all, and I am bound not to tell thee. But I was here when thou wast brought home by Wulfnoth, a baby-boy; and—and I know what I found out—I saw—God help me: but I swore by the Black Cross of Abingdon I would not tell."