Now it came to pass that Constance bore a child, and then the bishop sent a messenger and bade him ride at full speed to carry to his King the blissful news that Constance was the mother of a fair young son. The messenger cared more for his own gain than for his duty, and he said to himself, "If I go out of my way but a little, I can carry the joyful news to the King's mother also, and thus win a double reward." So this faithless servant rode out of his way and went to the home of the King's mother and gave her reverent salutation. "Madame," said he, "I have news to make you happy and blithe, and to make you thank God a hundred thousand times. My lady Queen is the glad mother of a fair young son, and all the land from end to end rejoices. See, madame, here is the sealed letter with the news, and I must bear it as swiftly as I can, that the King, too, may delight in the good tidings. If so be that you would send a message to him, I promise to serve you faithfully both night and day."

Donegild answered, "The hour is late, and I have no letter writ. Tarry, and until the morning take your rest. I will then have ready a message for the King." She plied the messenger with wine and ale, and while he slept the sleep of swine, she stealthily slipped out the letter from his casket and wickedly prepared another to put into its place and signed it with the name of the bishop. This is what the forged letter said: "The Queen has a child, but it is no proper human babe; it is such a horrible, fiendlike creature that no one in the castle dares to stay near it. The mother of such a child is surely nothing less than a fiend."

When the King read this letter, he was sick at heart, but he told no man of his trouble. He wrote a letter to his bishop and gave it to the messenger. Therein he said, "God's will be done. Keep the child, be it foul or fair, and guard my wife till I am again at home. Whatever betide, welcome be the will of God." He sealed this letter, weeping bitter tears of sorrow; and soon the messenger went his way. The faithless servant had no mind to miss the good wine and ale of the King's mother, therefore he went straightway to her abode. She made him welcome as before and did everything that she could to please him and entertain him. He drank as heavily as at his first visit, and again he fell into a swinish sleep. The letter intrusted to his care was stolen from his casket, and in its stead one was placed which said: "The King commands his constable to thrust Constance, once the Queen, from out the kingdom. He is to place her and her child and all that is hers on board the ship on which she came and push it from the shore and charge her that she never again be seen within the limits of the realm. All this he is to do before three days and a quarter of a tide have gone; and if he fail, his head is forfeited."

Such was the letter which the faithless messenger carried to the bishop; and when the good man read it, he cried, "O mighty God, how can it be that thou wilt suffer the innocent to perish and the wicked to prosper? Alas, woe is me! I must either become the executioner of the good Constance or die a shameful death; there is no way of escape."

Throughout the kingdom there was weeping by young and old; but at the dawning of the fourth day Constance, her face as pale as death, went down the path and toward the ship. When she had come to the shore, she knelt upon the sand and prayed, "Lord, whatever thou dost send is always welcome to me," and she said to the sorrowing folk around, "He who cleared me from a false charge when I first came to this land can also care for me on the wide ocean, even though I see not how. He is no less strong than he was before. I trust in him and his Mother, and that trust is for me both rudder and sail." Her little son lay in her arms weeping. "Peace, little son," she murmured; and then she cast her eyes upward to the heavens. "Mother Mary," she cried, "thy Child was tortured on a cross, and thou didst see all his torment. No suffering can compare with thine; for thy Child was slain before thine eyes—and my child lives. O little one," she said to her babe, "what is your wrong? You have never sinned; why will your cruel father take your life?" Then turning to the constable, she pleaded, "O dear kind bishop, can you not let my little child stay here with you? But if you dare not save him from harm, then kiss him once in his father's name." She gave one long look back to the land, said softly, "Farewell, cruel husband!" and walked toward the ship, hushing her child as she went. And when she reached the water's edge, she humbly crossed herself, bade the thronging crowd farewell, and stepped aboard. Food and clothes there were in plenty, for even her merciless enemy dared not send her away without; but she and her babe were on the wide, wide sea with none save Him above to care for them and give them comfort.

Soon after this, King Alla came home and bade the constable send him the Queen and her child. A chill struck to the heart of the good bishop, for he saw that somewhere there had been treachery. He told the King the piteous tale, and said sadly, "Behold, Sir King, your letter and its seal. Grieving, but on pain of death, I have given my best obedience to your will." The King ordered the faithless messenger to be brought before him, and under pain of torture he confessed where he had spent the night when on his way. So, step by step, the King traced out the whole sad story, and knew it was his own mother who, false to the allegiance she had sworn to him and to his rule, had driven his loving wife unto her death. "Be she my mother or my most bitter foe," so said King Alla, "no deed like this shall go unpunished"; and straightway the wicked woman was put to death; but night and day the lonely ruler grieved for wife and child.

Constance for five long years drifted hither and yon upon the sea; but the good Father kept her and her little child in his loving thought, and she was brought safely out of every danger. The ship floated sometimes east and sometimes west; sometimes it turned about and moved north, then, driven by some current or a changing wind, it drifted far to the south. Then through the narrow way between Morocco and the land of Spain it was borne, and far, far to the eastward. Behold, full in its path there came a mighty vessel all bedecked with banners and shields of victors. A Roman senator was in command; and when he saw the lonely woman on the stranger ship, he took her to his own vessel and brought her and her little son in all kind gentleness unto his wife at Rome. Own aunt was the wife to Constance, but the wanderer would tell no story of her past, and so, although for a long while she dwelt in the family of the good senator, no one guessed that she was the daughter of the powerful Emperor.

In far-away Britain the sorrow for her loss was not forgotten. Night and day King Alla mourned for his wife. Then, too, he had other reason for sadness, for he was guilty of his mother's death. At length he made a vow to go to Rome, for he thought that after he had obeyed the Pope's commands in great things and in small, he might dare to hope that Jesus Christ would pardon him his sin.

When it was told in Rome that King Alla was near at hand, then the noble senator and many other men of rank set out with a glittering retinue to meet the royal pilgrim. Many honors were shown him, and to return the courtesies King Alla gave a feast at which all the luxuries of all the world were set forth in abundance. The little son of Constance was to be taken to the feast, and while his mother robed him in his best, she bade him do her will. "Stand in full view of the King," she said, "and look him clearly in the eyes. I thought him once a kindly man; it may be that for you he will have some bit of gentleness even yet"; and then she kissed her child and let him go.

The boy obeyed his mother's word; and Alla, noticing the fair child who gazed at him so eagerly, asked who he was. "That is beyond my power to say," replied the senator. "All I know is that his mother is as good a woman as lives on God's earth"; and then he told the story of how, sailing home in victory from vengeance on the Syrians, inflicted at the Emperor's command, he had met a strange ship with no one on her save this child and a lonely woman.

Straightway King Alla forgot the noble company, forgot the feast, and remembered only how like his lost Queen's face was that of the fair child. "Could the boy's mother be my wife?" he mused, and then he chided himself for his idle folly. "My wife is long since dead," he thought sternly; but into his heart there came the trembling hope, "It was on a lonely vessel that she was brought to my country. May not Christ, who saved her once, have held her in his care a second time?" He could hardly wait for the guests to say farewell; and as soon as they were gone, he hastened homeward with the senator. Constance was bidden to come to meet the King. She stood before him, trembling, swooning, silent, pale as death; for in her heart was the old love of him mingled with sorrow and with just anger at his cruelty, and she had no word to say.

But at the first look King Alla knew his bride. The whole sad tale was told, and the King swore solemnly that, as he hoped for God's mercy on his soul, he was as guiltless of such cruel treachery as was Maurice, their little son. And now, when Constance found she might believe that he was innocent and that his love for her was pure and strong as in the earlier time in far-away Northumberland, there was such happiness in the hearts of those two as never before was felt by mortals in this world. There was even more joy to follow, for at the wish of Constance King Alla made a feast to which the mighty Emperor was humbly bidden. He sent his gracious word of acceptance; and when the day had come, King Alla and Queen Constance rode out in eager thought of happiness at hand to meet their guest. When the Queen looked near upon the Emperor's face, she slipped down from her palfrey and fell meekly at his feet and cried, "Father, I am your Constance. Have you clean forgot your youngest child? I am Constance whom you once sent to Syria. It is I who was thrust out upon the briny sea and doomed to die. Send me no more unto the heathen lands, but thank my lord here for his gentleness."

Sorrow and joy were mingled in the meeting, but soon the sorrow was all forgotten, and never yet was there a feast so glowing with happiness. After many days had passed, King Alla and his Queen returned in joy to their own far kingdom, and there they lived in quiet and peace. And when the time had come for God to take King Alla from the world to his bright heaven, then Constance made her way to Rome, and there, together with her father and her friends of old, she dwelt in holiness and deeds of alms. And when the Emperor had passed away, the child Maurice, now grown a strong and wise and stalwart man, was set upon the throne.