I felt as if I had expected to hear that the Welsh girl had gone as well as the thrall, and I cannot say that I was surprised; though as they had failed in whatever they meant to compass this time, I could not see why they should not have tried again.
"Whence came she," I asked as carelessly as I could. "Maybe she has only gone home, fearing blame for dropping that horn."
"She has no home to go to, that we ken. She came from Jago at Norton only a little while ago, and she would hardly try to get back there across the hills alone. She is an orphan serf of his, and I fear that she has been stolen away."
"She has not been here long, then?"
"She came when you were with Owen. Jago sent to ask if Elfrida would take her in, she being worth having as a maid. His wife had no place for her, but would that she was well cared for. So she came with the first chapman who travelled this way."
Now as I thought of this girl, in a moment it flashed across me where I had seen her before. It was on board the ship at Tenby, and she came with Dunwal and his daughter Mara. I was certain of it, though I had only seen her that once, for there I was in a strange land, and so noticed things and people at which I should hardly have glanced elsewhere. The Danish and British dress over there was strange to me also.
Then, as soon as I had a chance I asked the ealdorman for a few moments of private speech, and we went into his own chamber that opened on the high place of the hall where we had been sitting. There I told him all the trouble, for surely I needed all help that I could find, and at the last I said:
"Mara, the daughter of Dunwal, was at guest quarters with Jago."
Then I saw the face of my friend paling slowly under its ruddy tan, and he rose and walked across the room once or twice, biting his lip as though in wrath or sore trouble. I could not tell which it was, but I thought that he was putting some new thought together in his mind.
"It is plain enough," he said at last, staying his walk at a side table. "I saw my sick man pick up that horn the girl dropped, and he looked into it and laughed and drank from it, saying that it was a pity to waste good stuff. See, here it is. The curl of it may have kept a fair draught in it for him."