But Elfwyn and Herstan could hardly be denied permission to visit him, owing to their positions, and they both did so.  They found him in a chamber occupying the whole of the higher floor of a tower of the castle, which served as a prison for the city and neighbourhood, rudely but massively built.  One solitary and deep window admitted a little air and light, but the height rendered all escape hopeless, even had the victim wished to escape, which he did not.

“Alfgar, my son!” said Elfwyn, finding the poor prisoner did not speak, “do you not know us?”

“Indeed I do; but do you believe me guilty, nay, even capable of—­”

He could add no more, but they saw that if they doubted they would hear no more from him—­that he scorned self-defence.

“Guilty!—­no, God forbid! we alone in the council asserted your complete innocence.”

“I thank you; you have taken away the bitterness of death—­and Ethelgiva?”

“Would die for her conviction of your truth.”

“Thank God!” he said fervently, his face brightening at once; tears, indeed, rolled down his cheeks, but they seemed rather of gratitude than grief.

“We wanted to see, my son, whether you could aid us in discovering the real assassin—­whether you can in any way account for his possession of your dagger, for your door being still, as you asserted, fast inside.”

“I knew it made against me, but I couldn’t lie, it was fast inside.”

“Then how could the foe have gained admittance?”

“I could not discover that, but I think there must have been some secret door.  Edric had perhaps lived in the Place before; he once resided in Oxenford.”

“He did, and in that very house,” said Herstan.  “I was here at the time when he assassinated Sigeferth and Morcar in the banqueting hall.”

“That may supply a clue, I know no other possible one.”

“But how, then, did he get your dagger?”

“I think our wine was drugged the night before, or I should not have slept so soundly.  I remember with what difficulty I seemed to throw off a kind of nightmare which oppressed me, and to come to myself.”

“Then I will get a carpenter and search the wainscoting; and I will see whether I can learn anything about the wine,” said Elfwyn.

“Do so cautiously, my father, very cautiously, for if Edric suspects you are on his track, he will plot against your life too, and Ethelgiva will have no protector.

“Oh, this was to have been my wedding day, my wedding day!” and he clasped his hands in agony; then the thought of his master—­his slain lord—­returned, and he cried, “O Edmund! my master, my dear master, so good, so gentle, yet so brave; who else could slay him? what fiend else than Edric, the murderer Edric?  That they should think I, or any one else than Edric, could have done such a deed, such an evil deed!”

Elfwyn and Herstan both left the scene, the more convinced of Alfgar’s innocence, but yet the more puzzled to convey their impression to others.