"I crave thy pardon, if I ought to recognise thee, yet truth compels me to say I do not."
"Nor can I wonder; didst thou recognise me, thou wouldst think me a ghost permitted to revisit the land of the living--one whom thou didst actually behold wrapped in the cere cloth of the tomb!--whose funeral thou didst witness with thine own eyes! Yet he lives, and feels sure that thou wilt not revoke, upon this holy hill, that pardon from the living, thou didst bestow upon the seeming dead."
Etienne trembled.
"Art thou then? nay, it cannot be!"
"Etienne de Malville, I am Wilfred of Aescendune."
For a moment Etienne turned pale, and gazed as if to make sure he did not behold a ghost or a vampire--gazed like one startled out of his self possession, and the first emotion which succeeded was sheer incredulity; there was small trace of the once fair-haired English boy in the sunburnt, storm-beaten warrior of fifty to assist his memory.
"Nay, my brother, it cannot be; thou art jesting;--not, at least, the Wilfred of Aescendune I once knew, and by whom I fear I dealt somewhat hardly; he died, and was buried at Oxenford thirty years agone. I saw his dead body; I beheld his burial; I have joined in masses for his soul; I have prayed for his repose; nay, it cannot be!"
But when in few words, but words to the purpose, Wilfred explained the device of Geoffrey of Coutances--when he reminded Etienne of facts, which none but he could have known--conviction gradually, but firmly, seized the mind of his ancient enemy.
"I believe that thou art he," said the latter, with trembling voice; "believe, though I cannot yet realise the fact, and I thank God."
He extended his hand gravely, and Wilfred grasped it with equal solemnity.