Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/52

30 make herself known. He took her into his owrown [sic] house, and her aunt, the senator’s wife, loved her greatly, never guessing she was her own princess and kinswoman.

When King Alla got back from his war with the Scots and heard how Constance had been sent away, he was very angry; but when he questioned and found the letter which had been sent him was false, and that Constance had borne him a beautiful boy, he knew not what to think. When the governor showed him the letter with his own seal which directed that his wife and child should be sent away, he knew there was some hidden wickedness in all this. He forced the messenger to tell where he had carried the letters, and he confessed he had slept two nights at the castle of Donegilde.

So it all came out, and the king, in a passion of rage, slew his mother, and then shut himself up in this castle to give way to grief.

After a time he began to repent his deed, because he remembered it was contrary to the gentle teachings of the faith Constance had taught him. In his penitence he resolved to go to Rome on a pilgrimage, to atone for his sin. So in his pilgrim dress he set out for the great empire.

Now when it was heard in Rome that the great Alla from the North-land had come thither