The Lord Of Bramber.
Edith stood by while the Norman soldiers piled the stones over the grave. No tear had fallen from her eyes from the time that she had reached the field of battle. Her face was as pale as marble, and looked almost as rigid. When the last stone was placed on the top of the cairn she turned to Wulf and Beorn:

"Farewell, Wulf! farewell, Beorn! I am glad you were here. I am glad that beside me stood two of his most trusted thanes, and two of the monks from the abbey he founded, and whose welfare was so dear to him. I go to Lewes, and when the doors of the convent close on me I shall be dead to the world. Would that I were lying beneath that cairn by the side of my dear lord. I cannot weep for him now, the springs of my heart seem frozen, but I have time for that. Farewell, thanes! I shall remember you in my prayers." So saying she turned away, and walked back to the litter.

"Poor lady!" Beorn exclaimed as he watched the litter, escorted by the two monks, carried along the road.

"Poor lady indeed!" Wulf repeated; "and yet there are thousands in England and Normandy who were widowed yesterday, and maybe she is better off than many. She lost Harold the day she resigned him to another, and it was harder perhaps to be parted from him in that fashion than to know that he is dead now. She can think of him as his true widow, for assuredly the queen who never cared aught for him is a widow but in name. Before, Edith was tortured by the desire to see him and to comfort him, and yet his marriage stood as a gulf between them, a gulf that she would never have passed. Now she can think of him as her very own, as the man who had loved her even as she had loved him. It is a grief, a terrible grief, but one without bitterness. But see, Lord de Burg is coming this way, and as there is a litter behind him I suppose all is ready for our departure."