“And you have married her off since?”

It was idly said, in revulsion from pondering matters of state.In such a garden a man could believe in peace, fruit-fulness andamity. But it encountered suddenly so profound and pregnant asilence that Hugh pricked up his ears, and turned his head almoststealthily to study his friend, even before the unguarded answercame. Unguarded either from absence of mind, or of design, therewas no telling.

“Not wedded,” said Cadfael, “but certainlybedded. With a good man, too, and her honest champion. He deservedhis reward.”

Hugh raised quizzical brows, and cast a glance over his shouldertowards the long roof of the great abbey church, where reputedlythe lady in question slept in a sealed reliquary on her own altar.An elegant coffin just long enough to contain a small and holyWelshwoman, with the neat, compact bones of her race.

“Hardly room within there for two,” he saidmildly.

“Not two of our gross make, no, not there. There was spaceenough where we put them.” He knew he was listened to, now,and heard with sharp intelligence, if not yet understood.

“Are you telling me,” wondered Hugh no less mildly,“that she is not there in that elaborate shrine ofyours, where everyone else knows she is?”

“Can I tell? Many a time I’ve wished it could bepossible to be in two places at once. A thing too hard for me, butfor a saint, perhaps, possible? Three nights and three days she wasin there, that I do know. She may well have left a morsel of herholiness within—if only by way of thanks to us who took herout again, and put her back where I still, and always shall,believe she wished to be. But for all that,” owned Cadfael,shaking his head, “there’s a trailing fringe of doubtthat nags at me. How if I read her wrong?”