pain.  "For at times He sends that which breaks the heart."

"That He may heal it, my father."

The title, from Bruno's lips, surprised and puzzled Belasez.

"It may be so," said Abraham in a rather hopeless tone.  "`It is Adonai;
let Him do what seemeth Him good.'  So thou hast made friends with--my
Belasez."

"I did not know she was thine when I made friends with her," said Bruno,
with that quiet smile of his which had always seemed to Belasez at once
so sweet and so sad.

"`Did not know'?  No, I suppose not.  Ah, yes, yes!  `Did not know'!"

"Does this child know my history?" was Bruno's next question.

"She knows," said Abraham in a troubled voice, "nearly as much as thou
knowest."

"Then she knows all?"

"Nay, she knows nothing."

"You speak in riddles, my father."

"My son, I am about to do that which will break my heart.  Nay,--God is
about to do it.  Let me put it thus, or I shall not know how to bear
it."

"I have no wish nor intention to trouble you, my father," said Bruno
hastily.  "If I might, now and then, see this child,--to tell truth, it
would be a great pleasure and solace to me: for I have learned to love
her,--just the years of my Beatrice, just what Beatrice might have grown
to be.  Yet--if I speak I must speak honestly--give me leave to see
Belasez, only on the understanding that I may speak to her of Christ.
She is dear as any thing in this dreary world, but He is dearer than the
world and all that is in it.  If I may not do this, let me say farewell,
and see her no more."

"Thou hast spoken to her--of the Nazarene?" asked Abraham in a low tone.

"I have," was Bruno's frank reply.

"Thou hast taught her the Christian faith?"

"So far as I could do it."

Belasez stood trembling.  Yet Abraham did not seem angry.

"Thou hast baptised her, perhaps?"

"No.  That I have not."

"Not?--why not?"

"She was fit for it in my eyes; and--may I say it, Belasez?--she was
willing.  But my hands were not clean enough.  I felt that I could not
repress a sensation of triumphing over Licorice, if I baptised her
daughter.  May the Lord forgive me if I erred, but I did not dare to do
it."

"O my son, my son!" broke from Abraham.  "Thou hast been more righteous
than I.  Come home with me, and tell the story to Belasez thyself; and
then--Adonai, Thou knowest.  Help me to do Thy will!"

Bruno was evidently much astonished, and not a little perplexed at
Abraham's speech; but he followed him quietly.  The storm was over now,
and they gained home and the chamber over the porch without coming in
contact with Delecresse.  Abraham left Bruno there, while he desired
Belasez to take off her wet things and rejoin them.  Meantime he changed
his coat, and carried up wine and cake to his guest.  But when Belasez
reappeared, Abraham drew the bolt, and closed the inner baize door which
shut out all sound.

"Now, Bruno de Malpas," he said, "tell thy story."

And sitting down at the table, he laid his arms on it, and hid his face
upon it.

"But, my father, dost thou wish _her_ to hear it?"

"The Blessed One does, I believe.  She has heard as yet but a garbled
version.  I wish what He wishes."

"Amen!" ejaculated Bruno.  And he turned to Belasez.

She, on her part, felt too much astonished for words.  If any thing
could surprise her more than that Bruno should be actually invited to
tell the tapued story, it was the calm way in which Abraham received the
intimation that she had all but professed Christianity.  Mortal anger
and scathing contempt she could have understood and expected; but this
was utterly beyond her.

"Belasez," said Bruno, "years ago, before thou wert born, thy father had
another daughter, and her name was Anegay."

"Father! you said Anegay was not my sister!" came in surprised accents
from Belasez.  But a choking sob was the only answer from Abraham.

"She was not the daughter of thy mother, Belasez; but of thy father's
first wife, whose name was Fiona.  Perhaps he meant that.  She was
twenty years older than thou.  And--I need not make my tale long--we
met, Belasez, and we loved each other.  I told her of Christ, and she
became a Christian, and received holy baptism at my hands.  By that time
thy father had wedded thy mother.  As thou knowest, she is a staunch
Jewess; and though she did not by any means discover all, she did find
that Anegay had Christian friends, and forbade her to see them again.
Time went on, and we could scarcely ever meet, and Anegay was not very
happy.  At length, one night, a ring was brought to me which was her
usual token, praying me to meet her quickly at the house of Isabel de
Fulshaw, where we had usually met before.  I went, and found her weeping
as though her heart would break.  She told me that Licorice had been--
not very gentle with her, and had threatened to turn her out of the
house the next morning unless she would trample on the cross, as a sign
that she abjured all her Christian friends and Christ.  That, she said,
she could not do.  `I could tread on the piece of wood,' she said, `and
that would be nothing: but my mother means it for a sign of abjuring
Christ.'  And she earnestly implored me to get her into some nunnery,
where she might be safe.  Perhaps I ought to have done that.  But I
offered her another choice of safety.  And the next morning, as soon as
the canonical hours had dawned, Anegay was my wife."

Abraham spoke here, but without lifting his head.  "I was on a journey,
Belasez," he said.  "I never persecuted my darling--never!"

"No, Belasez," echoed Bruno; "he never did.  I believe he was bitterly
grieved at her becoming a Christian, but he had no hand in her
sufferings at that time.  A year or more went on, and the Lord gave us a
baby daughter.  I baptised her by the name of Beatrice, which was also
the name that her mother had received in baptism.  She was nearly a
month old, when a message came to me from the Bishop, requiring me to
come to him, which involved a journey, there and back, of about a week.
I went: and I returned--to find my home desolate.  Wife, child--even the
maid-servant,--all were gone.  An old woman, who dwelt in my parish, was
in the house, but she could tell me nothing save that a message had come
to her from Frethesind the maid, begging her to come and take charge of
the house until my return, but not giving a word of explanation.  I
could think of no place to which my wife would be likely to go, unless
her mother had been there, and had either forced or over-persuaded her
to return with her.  I hurried to Norwich with as much speed as
possible.  To my surprise, Licorice received me with apparent
kindliness, and inquired after Anegay as though no quarrel had ever
existed."

Belasez thought, with momentary amusement, that Bruno was not so well
acquainted with Licorice as herself.

"I asked in great distress if Anegay were not with her.  Licorice
assured me she knew nothing of her.  `Then you did not fetch her away?'
said I.  `How could I?' she answered.  `I have a baby in the cradle only
five weeks old.'  Well, I could not tell what to think; her words and
looks were those of truth.  She was apparently as kind as possible.  She
showed me her baby--thyself, Belasez; and encouraged me to play with
Delecresse, who was then a lively child of three years.  I came away,
baffled, yet unsatisfied.  I should have been better pleased had I seen
thy father.  But he, I was told, was again absent on one of his business
journeys."

"True," was the one word interpolated by Abraham, "I went to the house
of my friend, Walcheline de Fulshaw.  He was an apothecary.  I told my
story to him and to Isabel his wife, desiring their counsel as to the
means whereby I should get at the truth.  Walcheline seemed perplexed;
but Isabel said, `Father, I think I see how to find out the truth.  Dost
thou not remember,' she said, turning to her husband, `the maiden Rosia,
daughter of Aaron, whom thou didst heal of her sickness a year past?
Let me inquire of her.  These Jews all know each other.  The child is
bright and shrewd, and I am sure she would do what she could out of
gratitude to thee.'  Walcheline gave consent at once, and a messenger
was sent to the house of Aaron, requesting that his daughter would visit
Isabel de Fulshaw, who had need of her.  The girl came quickly, and very
intelligent she proved.  She was about twelve years of age, and was
manifestly loving and desirous to oblige Isabel, who had, as I heard
afterwards, shown her great kindness.  She said she knew Abraham thy
father well, and Licorice and Anegay.  `Had Anegay been there of late?'
Isabel asked her.  `Certainly,' answered Rosia.  `Was she there now?'
The child hesitated.  But the truth came out when Isabel pressed her.
Licorice had been absent from home, for several weeks, and when she
returned, Anegay was with her, and four men were also in her company.
Anegay had been very ill: very, very ill indeed, said the child.  But--
after long hesitation--she was better now.  `What about the baby?' asked
Isabel.  Rosia looked surprised.  She had heard of none, except
Licorice's own--thee, Belasez.  Had she spoken with Anegay?  The girl
shook her head.  Had she seen her?  Yes.  How was it, that she had seen
her, but not spoken with her?  The child replied, she was too ill to
speak; she knew no one."

"She did not know me, Belasez," said Abraham sorrowfully, lifting his
white, troubled face.  "I came home to find her there, to my great
surprise.  But she did not know me.  She took me for some other man, I
cannot tell whom.  And she kept begging me pitifully to tell Bruno--to
let Bruno know the moment he should come home: he would never, never
leave her in prison; he would be sure to rescue her.  I asked Licorice
if Anegay had come of her own will, for I was very much afraid lest some
force had been used to bring her.  But she assured me that my daughter
had returned of her own free will, only a little reluctantly, lest her
husband should not approve it.  There had been no force whatever, only a
little gentle persuasion.  And--fool that I was!--I believed it at the
time.  It was not until all was over that I heard the real truth.  What
good could come of telling Bruno then?  It would be simply to make him
miserable to no purpose.  And yet--Go on, my son."

And Abraham returned to his former position.

"Then," continued Bruno, "Isabel pressed the child Rosia harder.  She
told her that she felt certain she knew where Anegay was, and she must
tell it to her.  At last the child burst into tears.  `Oh, don't ask
me!' she said, `for I did love her so much!  I cannot believe what
Licorice says, that she is gone to Satan because she believed in the
Nazarene.  I am sure she went to God.'  `But is she dead, Rosia?' cried
Isabel.  And the child said, `She is dead.  She died yesterday
morning.'"

Bruno paused, apparently to recover his composure.

"I went back at once to this house.  I saw that Licorice instantly read
in my face that I had heard the truth: and she tried to brazen it out no
longer.  Yes, it was true, she said in answer to my passionate charges:
Anegay was dead.  I should see her if I would, to convince me.  So I
passed into an inner chamber, and there I found her lying, my own fair
darling, white and still, with the lips sealed for ever which could have
told so much--"

Bruno nearly broke down, and he had to wait for a minute before he could
proceed.

"I stood up from my dead, and I demanded of Licorice why she had done
this cruel thing.  And she said, `Why!  How little does a Christian know
the heart of a Jew!  Canst thou not guess that in our eyes it is a
degradation for a daughter of Israel to be looked on by such as you
Gentiles--that for one of you so much as to touch her hand is pollution
that only blood can wipe away?  Why!  I wanted to revenge myself on
thee, and if it were not too late, to save the child's soul.  Thou canst
hang me now, if thou wilt: I have had my revenge!'  And I said,
`Licorice, my faith teaches me that revenge must be left to God, and
that only forgiveness is for the lips of men.  I, a sinner as thou art,
must have nothing to do with vengeance.  But, O Licorice, by all that
thou deemest dear and holy, by the love that thou bearest to that babe
of thine in the cradle, I conjure thee to tell me what has become of my
child.  Is she yet living?'  She paused a while.  Then she said in a low
voice, `No, Bruno.  The journey was too much, in such a season, for so
young an infant.  She died the day after we arrived here.  Perhaps,'
said Licorice, `thou wilt not believe me; but I am sorry that the child
is dead.  I meant to bring her up a strict Jewess, and to wed her to
some Jew.  That would have been sweet to me.  She and my Belasez would
have grown together like twin sisters, for they were almost exactly of
an age.'  I could not refuse credence, for her look and tone were those
of truth.  It explained, too, if Beatrice had died so soon after
arrival, why the child Rosia had not heard of her.  So then I knew,
Belasez, that the life to which my God called me thenceforward was to be
a lonely walk with Him, sweetened by no human love any more, only by the
dear hope that Heaven would hold us all, and that when we met in the
Golden City we should part no more."

Tears were dimming Belasez's eyes.  Bruno turned to Abraham.

"Now, my father, I have done thy will.  But suffer me to say that it is
no slight perplexity to me, why thou hast thought it meet that this
sorrowful story should be told to the child of her that did the wrong."

Abraham made no answer but to rise from the position in which he had
been sitting all the time, and to walk straight to the window.  He
seemed unwilling to speak, and his companions looked at him in doubtful
surprise.  They had to wait, however, till he turned from the window,
and came and stood before Bruno.

"Son," he said, "what saith thy faith to this question?--When a man hath
taken the wrong road, and hath wandered far away from right, from truth,
and God, is it ever too late, while life lasts, for him to turn and come
back?"

"Never," was Bruno's answer.

"And is it, under any circumstances, lawful for a man to lie unto his
neighbour?"

Bruno, like many another, was better than his system; and at that time
the Church herself had not reached those depths of legalised iniquity
wherein she afterwards plunged.  So that he had no hesitation in
repeating, "Never."

"Then hear the truth, Bruno de Malpas; and if it well-nigh break an old
man's heart to tell it, it is better that I should suffer and die for
God's sake than that I should live for mine.  On one point, Licorice
deceived thee to the last.  And until now, I, even I, have aided her in
duping thee.  Yet it is written, `He that confesseth and forsaketh his
sin shall find mercy.'  May it not be too late for me!"

"Assuredly not, my father.  But what canst thou mean?"

"Bruno, thy child did not die the day after she came hither."

"Father!  Thou art not going to tell me--"

Bruno's voice had in it a strange mixture of agony and hope.

"Son, thy Beatrice lives."

Before either could speak further, Belasez had thrown herself on her
knees, and flung her arms around Abraham.

"O Father, if it be so, speak quickly, and end his agony!  For the sake
of the righteous Lord, that loveth righteousness, do, do give Father
Bruno back his child!"

Abraham disengaged himself from Belasez's clinging arms with what seemed
almost a shudder.  He took up his long robe, and tore it from the skirt
to the neck.  Then, with a voice almost choked with emotion, he laid
both hands, as if in blessing, on the head of the kneeling Belasez.

"Beatrice de Malpas," he said, "Thou art that child."

A low cry from Bruno, a more passionate exclamation from Belasez, and
the father and daughter were clasped heart to heart.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

WHAT CAME OF IT.

  "Content to fill Religion's vacant place
  With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace."

  _Cowper_.

"Nay, my son, it is of no use.  I shall never forsake the faith of my
fathers.  For this child, if she can believe it,--well: she is more
thine than mine,--_ay Dios_!  And perhaps there is this much change in
me, that I have come to think it just possible that it may not be
idolatry to fancy the Nazarene was the Messiah.  How can I tell?  We
know so little, and Adonai knows so much!  But the cowslip is easily
transplanted: the old oak will take no new rooting.  Let the old oak
alone.  And there are other things in thy faith, my son,--a maiden whom
I should deem it sin to worship, images of stone before which no Jew may
bow down, a thing you call the Church, which we cannot understand, but
which seems to bind you all, hand and foot, soul and body, as a slave is
bound by his master.  I cannot take up with those."

"Nor I," said Belasez in a low voice.

"Then do not," was the quiet answer of Bruno.  "I shall never ask it of
either of you."

"But thou believest all these?" said Abraham.

"I believe Jesus Christ my Lord.  The rest is all to me a very little
matter.  I never pray with an image; I need it not.  If another man
think he does need it, to his own conscience I leave it before God.  For
Mary, Mother and Maid, I honour her, as you maybe honour your mother.
_I_ do not worship her: about other men I say nothing.  And as to the
Church,--why, what is the Church but a congregation of saved souls, to
whom Christ is Lawgiver and Saviour?  Her laws are His: or if not, then
they have no right to be hers."

"Ah Bruno," said Abraham rather sadly, "thy religion is not that of
other Christians."

"It is better," said Belasez softly.

"Father, my Christianity is Christ.  I concern not myself with other
men, except to save them, so far as it pleases God to work by me."

"Well, well!  May Adonai forgive us all!--My son, what dost thou mean to
do with the child?  It is for thee to decide now."

"My father, I shall endeavour to obtain absolution from my vows, and to
become once more a parish priest, so that my Beatrice may dwell with me.
Until then, choose thou whether she shall remain with thee, or go back
to Bury Castle.  I am sure the Lady would gladly receive her."

"Nay, Bruno, do not ask me to choose!  If the child be here when
Licorice returns, she will never dwell with thee.  I believe she would
well-nigh stab us both to the heart sooner than permit it.  And I fear
she may come any day."

"Then she had better come with me to Bury."

"`It is Adonai!'  So be it."

"But I shall see thee, my father?" asked Belasez, addressing Abraham.

"Trust me for that, my Belasez!  I can come to thee on my trade
journeys, so long as it pleases the Holy One that I have strength to
take them.  And after that--He will provide.  My son, wilt thou come for
the child to-morrow?  I will let thee out at the postern door; for thou
hadst better not meet Delecresse."

And Abraham drew back the bolt, and opened the baize door.

"Father Jacob!" they heard him instantly ejaculate, in a very different
tone from that of his last words.

"What hast thou been about now?" demanded the shrill voice of Licorice
in the passage outside.  "When folks are frightened at the sight of
their lawful wives, it is a sure sign they have been after some
mischief.  Is there any one in yon chamber except thyself?--Ah, Belasez,
I am glad to see thee; 'tis more than I expected.  But, child, thou
shouldst have set the porridge on half an hour ago; go down and look to
it.--Any body else?  Come, I had best see for myself."

And Licorice pushed past her husband, and walked into the room where
Bruno was standing.  He came forward to meet her, with far more apparent
calmness than Abraham seemed to feel.

"Good even, my mother," he said courteously.

"If I were thy mother, I would hang myself from the first gable," hissed
Licorice between her closed teeth.  "I know thee, Bruno de Malpas, thou
vile grandson of a locust!  Nay, locust is too good for thee: they are
clean beasts, and thou art an unclean.  Thou hare, camel, coney,
night-hawk, raven, lobster, earwig, hog!  I spit on thee seven times,"--
and she did it--"I deliver thee over to Satan thy master--"

"That thou canst not," quietly said Bruno.

"I sweep thee out of my house!"  And suiting the action to the word,
Licorice caught up a broom which stood in the corner, and proceeded to
apply it with good will.  Bruno retreated, as was but natural he should.

"Licorice, my dear wife!"

"I'll sweep _thee_ out next!" cried Licorice, brandishing her broom in
the very face of her lord and master.  "I'll have no Christians, nor
Christian blood, nor Christian faith, in my house, as I am a living
daughter of Abraham!  Get you all out hence, ye loathsome creeping
things, which whosoever toucheth shall be unclean!  Get ye out, I say!--
Belasez, bring me soap and water.  I'll not sleep till I've washed the
floor.  I'd wash the air if I could."

"Your pardon, Mother, but if you will have no Christian blood in your
house, you must sweep me out," answered Belasez, with a mixture of
dignity and irrepressible amusement.

Licorice turned round to Abraham.

"Thou hast told her?"

"It was better she should know, wife."

"I'll chop thy head off, if I hear thee say that again!--And dost thou
mean to be a Christian, thou wicked girl?"

"I do, Mother.  And I mean to go with my father."

"Go, then--like to like!--and all the angels of Satan go with thee!"

And the broom came flying after Belasez.

"Nay, wife, give the child her raiment and jewels."

"I'll give her what belongs to her, and that's a hot iron, if she does
not get out of that door this minute!"

"Wife!"

"I'll spoil her pretty face for her!" shrieked Licorice.  "I never liked
the vain chit overmuch, nor Anegay neither: but if she does not go, I'll
give her something she won't forget in a hurry!"

"Come, my Beatrice,--quick!" said Bruno.

"Go, go, my Belasez, and God keep thee!" sobbed Abraham.

And so Belasez was driven away from her old home.  She had hardly
expected it.  It had always been a trouble to her, and a cause of
self-reproach, that she and Licorice did not love each other better: and
she was not able to repress a sensation of satisfaction in making the
discovery that Licorice was not her mother.  Yet Belasez had not looked
for this.

"What are we to do, Father?" she asked rather blankly.

"I must lodge thee with the Sisters of Saint Clare, my child; there is
nothing else to be done.  I will come and fetch thee away so soon as my
arrangements can be made."

Beatrice,--as we must henceforth call her,--did not fancy this
arrangement at all.  Bruno detected as much in her face.

"Thou dost not like it, my dove?"

"I do not like being with strangers," she said frankly.  "And I am
afraid the nuns will think me a variety of heathen, for I cannot do all
they will want me."

"They will not, if I tell the Abbess that thou art a new convert," said
Bruno.  "They may very likely attempt to instruct thee."

"Father, why should there be any nuns?"

Beatrice did not know how she astonished Bruno.  But he only smiled.

"Thine eyes are unaccustomed to the light," was all he answered.

"But, Father, among our people of old,--I mean," said Beatrice
hesitatingly, "my mother's people--"

"Go on, my Beatrice.  Let it be `our people.'  Speak as it is nature to
thee to do."

"Thank you, my father.  Among our people, there were no nuns.  So far
from it, that for a woman to remain unwed was considered a reproach."

"Why?--dost thou know?"

"I think, because every woman longed for the glory of being the mother
of the Messiah."

"True.  Therefore, Christ being come, that reproach is done away.  Let
each woman choose for herself.  `If a virgin marry, she hath not
sinned.'  Nevertheless, `she that is unmarried thinks of the things of
the Lord, that she may be holy, body and soul.'"

"Father, do you wish _me_ to be a nun?"

"Never!" hastily answered Bruno.  "Nay, my Beatrice; I should not have
said that.  Be thou what the Lord thinks best to make thee.  But I do
not want to be left alone again."

Beatrice's heart was set at rest.  She had terribly feared for a moment
lest Bruno, being himself a monk, might think her absolutely bound to be
a nun.

They soon reached the Franciscan Convent.  The Abbess, a rather
stiffly-mannered, grey-haired woman, received her young guest with
sedate kindliness, and committed her to the special charge of Sister
Eularia.  This was a young woman of about twenty-five, in whose mind
curiosity was strongly developed.  She took Beatrice up to the
dormitory, showed her where she was to sleep, and gave her a seat on the
form beside her at supper, which was almost immediately served.
Beatrice noticed that whenever Eularia helped herself to any thing
edible, she made the sign of the cross over it.

"Why dost thou do that?" asked the young Jewess.

"It is according to our rule," replied the nun.  "Surely thou knowest
how to cross thyself?"

"Indeed I do not.  And I do not see why I should."

"Poor thing!--how sadly thou lackest teaching!  Dost thou not know that
our Lord Christ suffered on the cross?"

"Oh yes!  But why must I cross myself on that account?"

"In respect to Him!" exclaimed Eularia.

"Pardon me.  If one whom I loved were slain by the sword, I should not
courtesy to every sword I saw, because I loved him.  I should hate the
very sight of one."

Eularia was scarcely less puzzled than Beatrice.

"It is the symbol of our salvation," she said.

"I should look on it rather as the symbol of His suffering."

"True: but He suffered for us."

"For which reason I should still less admire that which made Him
suffer."

Eularia shrugged her shoulders.

"Thou art very ignorant."

The discussion slumbered until they rose from supper; when Eularia
seated Beatrice beside her on the settle, and offered to instruct her in
the use of the rosary.

"What a pretty necklace!  I thought nuns did not wear ornaments?"

"Ornaments!  Of course not."

"Then what do you do with that?"

"We pray by it."

"Pray--by--it!  I do not understand."

"We keep count of our prayers."

"Count!--why?"

"Why, how could we remember them else?"

"But why should you remember?"

"Poor ignorant child!  When thou comest to make confession, thou wilt
find that the priest will set thee for penance, so many Aves and so many
Paternosters."

"What are those?"

"Dost thou never pray?" gasped Eularia.

"I never say so many of one thing, and so many of another," answered
Beatrice, half laughing.  "I never heard anything so absurd.  The holy
prophets did not pray in that way."

"Of course they did!" exclaimed Eularia.  "How could they obtain help of
our Lady, without repeating Ave and Salve?"

"How could they, indeed, before she was born?" was the retort.

"Oh dear, dear!" said Eularia.  "Why, thou knowest nothing."

Beatrice privately thought that she would prefer not to know all that
rubbish.  Plenty of it was served up to her before she left the convent,
by the holy Sisters of Saint Clare.

It was nearly three weeks before Bruno came for her, and very weary of
her hosts she was.  They were no less astonished and dismayed by her.
The ignorant heathen would not worship the holy images, would not use
holy water, would not kneel before the holy Sacrament, would not do
this, that, and the other: and, not content with this series of
negations, she actually presumed to reason about them!

"What dost thou believe?" despairingly demanded Sister Eularia at last.

"I believe in God," said Beatrice gravely.  "And I believe that Jesus of
Nazareth was the Sent of God."

"And in the Holy Ghost?" asked Eularia.

"If I understand you, certainly.  Is it not written, `The Spirit of God
hath made me'?"

"And in holy Church?"

"I do not know.  What is it?"

"How shocking!  And in the forgiveness of sins?"

"Assuredly."

"And in the resurrection and eternal life?"

"Undoubtedly."

"And in the invocation of the holy saints?"

"I believe that there have been holy men and women."

"And dost thou invoke them?"

"Do you mean, pray to them?"

"Dost thou beg of them to intercede for thee?"

"No, indeed, not I!"

"Did I ever see such ignorance!  And thou wilt not learn."

"I will learn of my father, and no one else.  I am sure he does not
believe half the rubbish you do."

"_Sancta Hilaria, or a pro nobis_!"

"What language is that?" innocently asked Beatrice.

"The holy tongue, of course."

"It is not our holy tongue."

"Have Jews a holy tongue?" responded Eularia, in surprise.

"Yes, indeed,--Hebrew."

"I did not know they believed any thing to be holy.  Have they any
relics?"

"I do not know what those are."

Eularia led the way to the sacristy.

"Look here," she said, reverently opening a golden reliquary set with
rubies.  "Here is a small piece of the holy veil of our foundress, Saint
Clare.  This is the finger-bone of the blessed Evangelist Matthew.  Here
is a piece of the hoof of the holy ass on which our Lord rode.  Now thou
knowest what relics are."

"But what can make you keep such things as those?" asked Beatrice,
opening wide her lustrous eyes.

"And this," enthusiastically added Eularia, opening another reliquary
set with emeralds and pearls, "is our most precious relic,--one of the
small feathers from the wing of the holy angel, Saint Gabriel."

To the intense horror of Eularia, a silver laugh of unmistakable
amusement greeted this holy relic.

"Beatrice! hast thou no reverence?"

"Not for angels' feathers," answered Beatrice, still laughing.  "Well, I
did think you had more sense!"

"I can assure thee, thou wilt shock Father Bruno if thou allowest
thyself to commit such improprieties."

"I shall shock him, then.  How excessively absurd!"

Eularia took her unpromising pupil out of the sacristy more hastily than
she had led her in.  And perhaps it was as well for Beatrice that Father
Bruno arrived the next day.

They reached Bury Castle in safety.  The Countess had been very much
interested in Father Bruno's story, and most readily acceded to his
request to leave Beatrice as her visitor until he should have a home to
which he could take her.  And Beatrice de Malpas, the daughter of a
baronial house in Cheshire, was a very different person in the
estimation of a Christian noble from Belasez, daughter of the Jew
pedlar.

Rather to her surprise, she found herself seated above the salt, that
is, treated as a lady of rank: and the embargo being over which had
confined her to Margaret's apartments, she took her place at the Earl's
table in the banquet-hall.  Earl Hubert's quick eyes soon found out the
addition to his supper-party, and he condescended to remark that she was
extremely pretty, and quite an ornament to the hall.  Beatrice herself
was much pleased to find her old friend Doucebelle seated next to her,
and they soon began to converse on recent events.

It is a curious fact as concerns human nature, that however long friends
may have been parted, their conversation nearly always turns on what has
happened just before they met again.  They do not speak of what
delighted or agonised them ten years ago, though the effect may have
extended to the whole of their subsequent lives.  They talk of last
week's journey, or of yesterday's snow-storm.

Beatrice fully expected Doucebelle's sympathy on the subject of relics,
and she was disappointed to find it not forthcoming.  Doucebelle was
rather inclined to be shocked than amused.  The angel's feather, in her
eyes, was provocative of any thing rather than ridicule: and Beatrice,
who had anticipated her taking the common-sense view of the matter, felt
chilled by the result.

Life had fallen back into its old grooves at Bury Castle.  Grief, with
the Countess, was usually a passionate, but also a transitory feeling.
Her extremely easy temper led her to get rid of a sorrow as soon as ever
she could.  Pain, whether mental or bodily, was in her eyes not a
necessary discipline, but an unpleasant disturbance of the proper order
of events.  In fact, she was one of those persons who are always popular
by reason of their gracious affability, but in whom, below the fair flow
of sweet waters, there is a strong substratum of stony selfishness.  She
objected to people being in distress, not because it hurt them, but
because it hurt her to see them.  And the difference between the two,
though it may scarcely show at times on the surface, lies in an entire
and essential variety of the strata underneath.

It was only natural that, with this character, the Countess should
expect others to be as little impressed by suffering as herself.  She
really had no conception of a disposition to which sorrow was not an
easily-healed scratch, but a scar that would be carried to the grave.
In her eyes, the calamity which had happened to her daughter was a
disappointment, undoubtedly, but one which she would find no difficulty
in surmounting at all.  There were plenty of other men in the world,
quite as handsome, as amiable, as rich, and as noble, as Richard de
Clare.  If such a grief had happened to herself, she would have wept
incessantly for a week, been low-spirited for a month, and in a year
would have been wreathed with smiles, and arranging her trousseau for a
wedding with another bridegroom.  The only thing which could really have
distressed her long, would have been if the vacant place in her life had
_not_ been refilled.

But Margaret's character was of a deeper type.  For her the world held
no other man, and life's blossom once blighted, no second crop of
happiness could grow, at least on the same tree.  To such a character as
this, the only possibility of throwing out fresh bloom is when the tree
is grafted by the great Husbandman with amaranth from Heaven.

Yet it was not in Margaret's nature--it would have been in her
mother's--to say much of what she felt.  Outwardly, she showed no
difference, except that her _coeur leger_ was gone, never to return.
She did not shut herself up and refuse to join in the employments or
amusements of those around her.  And the majority of those around never
suspected that the work and the amusement alike had no interest for her,
nor would ever have any: that she "could never think as she had thought,
or be as she had been, again."

One person only perceived the truth, and that was because he was cast in
a like mould.  Bruno saw too plainly that the hope expressed by the
Countess that "Magot was getting nicely over her disappointment" was not
true,--never would be true.  In his case the amaranth had been grafted
in, and the plant was blossoming again.  But there was no such hope for
her, at least as yet.

Beatrice was unable to enter into Margaret's feelings, not so much
through want of capacity as of experience.  Eva was equally unable,
being naturally at once of a more selfish and a less concentrated
disposition: her mind would have been more easily drawn from her
sorrow,--an important item of the healing process.  Doucebelle came
nearest; but as she was the most selfless of all, her grief in like case
would have been rather for the sufferings of Richard than for her own.

Beatrice soon carried the relic question to her father for decision;
though with some trepidation as to what he would say.  If he should not
agree with her, she would be sorely disappointed.  Bruno's smile half
reassured her.

"So thou canst not believe in the genuineness of these relics?" said he.
"Well, my child, so that thou hast full faith in Christ and His
salvation, I cannot think it much matters whether thou believest a
certain piece of stuff to be the veil of Saint Clare or not.  Neither
Saint Clare nor her veil is concerned in thine eternal safety."

"But Doucebelle seems almost shocked.  She does believe in them."

"Perhaps it will not harm her--with the like proviso."

"But, Father!--the honour in which they hold these rags and bones seems
to me like idolatry!"

"Then be careful thou commit it not."

"But _you_ do not worship such things?"

"Dear child, I find too much in Christ and in this perishing world, to
have much time to think of them."

Beatrice was only half satisfied.  She would have felt more contented
had Bruno warmly disclaimed the charge.  It was at the cost of some
distress that she realised that what were serious essentials to her were
comparatively trivial matters to him.  The wafts of polluted air were
only too patent to her, which were lost in the purer atmosphere, at the
altitude where Bruno stood.

The girls were gathered together one afternoon in the ante-chamber of
Margaret's apartments, and Bruno, who had come up to speak to his
daughter, was with them.  Except in special cases, no chamber of any
house was sacred from a priest.  Eva was busy spinning, but it would be
more accurate to say that Marie, who was supposed to be spinning also,
was engaged in breaking threads.  Margaret was employed on
tapestry-work; Doucebelle in plain sewing; and Beatrice with her
delicate embroidery.

"Father," said Beatrice, looking up suddenly, "I was taught that it was
sin to make images of created things, on account of the words of the
second commandment.  What do you say?"

"`_Non fades tibi sculptile, neque omnem similitudinem_,'" murmured
Bruno, reflectively.  "I think, my child, that it depends very much on
the meaning of `_tibi_' Ah, I see in thy face thou hast learned no
Latin.  `Thou shalt not make _to thee_ any sculptured image.'  Then a
sculptured image may be made otherwise.  The latter half of the
commandment, I think, shows what is meant.  `_Non adorabis ea, neque
coles_'--`thou shalt not worship them.'  At the same time, Saint Paul
saith, `_Omne autem, quod non est ex fide, peccatum est_'--`all that is
not of faith is sin;' and `_nisi ei qui existimat quid commune esse,
illi commune est_': namely, `to him who esteemeth a thing unclean, to
him it is unclean.'  If thou really believest it sin, by no means allow
thyself to do it."

"But, Father, suppose we cannot be sure?" said Doucebelle.

"Thou needst not fear that thou wilt ever walk _too_ close to Christ,
daughter," quietly answered Bruno.

"But, Father I are we bound to give up all that can possibly be sin, or
even can become sin?" asked Eva, in a tone which decidedly indicated
dissent.

"I should like to hear thy objection, daughter."

"Why, we should have to give up every thing nice!" said Eva,
disconsolately.  "There are all sorts of delightful things, which are
not exactly sins, but--"

"Not quite virtues," interposed Beatrice, with an amused expression, as
Eva paused.

"Well, no.  Still they are not wrong--in themselves.  But they make one
waste one's time, or forget to say one's beads, or be cross to one's
sister,--just because they are so delightful, and one does not want to
give over.  And being cross is sin, I suppose; and so it is when one
forgets to say one's prayers: I don't know whether wasting time is
exactly a sin."

"I see," said Bruno, in the same quiet tone.  "Had our Lord sent thee to
clear His Temple of the profane who desecrated it by traffic, thou
wouldst have overthrown the tables of the money-changers, but not the
seats of them that sold doves."

Beatrice and Doucebelle answered by a smile of intelligence; Eva looked
rather dissatisfied.

"But it is not a sin to be happy, Father?" asked Margaret in a low
voice.

"Not if God give thee the happiness."

"That is just it!" said Eva, discontentedly.  "How is one to know?"

"My child," answered Bruno, ignoring the tone, "God never means His
children to put any thing into the place of Himself.  The moment thou
dost that, that thing is sin to thee."

"But when do we do that, Father?" asked Doucebelle.

"When it makes thee forget to say thy prayers, I should think," drily
observed Beatrice.

"When it comes in the way between Him and thee," said Bruno.

"And is it a sin to waste time, Father?" queried Eva.

"It is a sin to waste any thing," answered Bruno.  "But if it be more a
sin to waste one thing than another, surely it is to waste life itself."

He rose and went away.  Eva shrugged her shoulders with a wry face.

"There never was any body so precise as Father Bruno!  I would rather
ask questions of Father Nicholas, ten times over."

"Well, I don't like asking questions of Father Nicholas," responded
Doucebelle, "because he never answers them.  He never goes down to the
bottom of things."

"_Ha, chetife_!" cried Eva.  "Dost thou want to get to the bottom of
things?  That is just why I like Father Nicholas, because he never
bothers one with reasons and distinctions.  It is only, `Yes, thou
mayest do so,' or `No, do not do that,'--and then I am satisfied.  Now,
Father Bruno will persist in explaining why I am not to do it, and that
sometimes makes me want to do it all the more.  It seems to leave it in
one's own hands."

Beatrice broke into a laugh.  "Why, Eva, thou wouldst rather be a chair
to be moved about, than a woman to be able to go at pleasure."

"I would rather have a distinct order," said Eva, a little scornfully.
"`Do,' or `Don't,' I can understand.  But, `Saint Paul says this,' or
`Saint John says that,' and to have to make up one's own mind,--I detest
it."

"And I should detest the opposite."

"I am afraid, Beatrice, thou art greatly wanting in the virtue of holy
obedience.  But of course one can make allowances for thine unhappy
education."

Eva had occasion to leave the room at the conclusion of this
unflattering speech: and Beatrice indulged in a long laugh.

"Well, what I am afraid of," she said to Margaret and Doucebelle, "is
that Eva is rather wanting in the virtue of common-sense.  But whether I
am to lay that on her education, I do not know."

There was no answer: but the thoughts of the hearers were almost
opposites.  Margaret considered Beatrice rash and self-satisfied.
Doucebelle thought heartily with her, and only wished that she had as
much courage to say so.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

WHAT IS LOVE?

  "She only said, `My life is dreary,
  He cometh not,' she said:
  She said, `I am aweary, weary,
  I would that I were dead!'"

  _Tennyson_.

It was fortunate for Bruno de Malpas that he had a friend in Bishop
Grosteste, whose large heart and clear brain were readily interested in
his wish to return from regular to secular orders.  He smoothed the path
considerably, and promised him a benefice in his diocese if the
dispensation could be obtained.  But the last was a lengthy process, and
some months passed away before the answer could be received from Rome.

It greatly scandalised Hawise and Eva--for different reasons--to see how
very little progress was made by Beatrice in that which in their eyes
was the Christian religion.  It was a comfort to them to reflect that
she had been baptised as an infant, and therefore in the event of sudden
death had a chance of going to Heaven, instead of the dreadful certainty
of being shut up in Limbo,--a place of vague locality and vaguer
character, being neither pleasant nor painful, but inhabited by all the
hapless innocents whose heathen or careless Christian parents suffered
them to die unregenerated.  But both of them were sorely shocked to
discover, when she had been about two months at Bury, that poor Beatrice
was still ignorant of the five commandments of the Church.  Nor was this
all: she irreverently persisted in her old inquiry of "What is the
Church?" and sturdily demanded what right the Church had to give
commandments.

Hawise was quite distressed.  It was not _proper_,--a phrase which, with
her, was the strongest denunciation that could be uttered.  Nobody had
ever asked such questions before: _ergo_, they ought never to be asked.
Every sane person knew perfectly well what the Church was (though, when
gently urged by Beatrice, Hawise backed out of any definition), and no
good Catholic could possibly require telling.  And as to so shocking a
supposition as that the Church had no right to issue her own commands,--
well, it was not proper!

Eva's objection was quite as strong, but of a different sort.  She
really could not understand what Beatrice wanted.  If the priest--or the
Church--they were very much the same thing--told her what to do, could
she not rest and be thankful?  It was a great deal less trouble than
everlastingly thinking for one's self.

"No one of any note ever thinks for himself," chimed in Hawise.

"Then I am glad I am not of any note!" bluntly responded Beatrice.

"You a De Malpas!  I am quite shocked!" said Hawise.

"God made me with a heart and a conscience," was the answer.  "If He had
not meant me to use them, He would not have given them to me."

At that point Beatrice left the room in answer to a call from the
Countess; and Hawise, turning to her companions, remarked in a whisper
that it must be that dreadful Jewish blood on the mother's side which
had given her such very improper notions.  They were _so_ low!  "For my
part," she added, "if it were proper to say so, I should remark that I
cannot imagine why Father Bruno does not see that she understands
something of Christianity--but of course one must not criticise a
priest."

"Speak truth, my daughter," said a voice from the doorway which rather
disconcerted Hawise.  "Thou canst not understand my actions--in what
respect?"

"I humbly crave your pardon, Father; but I am really distressed about
Beatrice."

"Indeed!--how so?"

"She understands nothing about Christian duties."

"I hope that is a little more than truth.  But if not,--let her
understand Christ first, my child: Christian duties will come after."

"Forgive _me_, Father--without teaching?"

"Not without His teaching," said Bruno, gravely.  "Without mine, it may
be."

"But, Father, she does not know the five commandments of holy Church.
Nay, she asks what `the Church' means."

"If she be in the Church, she can wait to know it.  Thy garments will
not keep thee less warm because thou hast never learned how to weave
them."

Hawise did not reply, but she looked unconvinced.

A few days after this, Eva was pleased to inform Beatrice that she had
been so happy as to reach that point which in her eyes was the apex of
feminine ambition.

"I am betrothed to Sir William de Cantilupe."

Margaret sighed.

"Dost thou like him?" asked Beatrice, in her straightforward way, which
was sometimes a shade too blunt, and was apt to betray her into asking
direct questions which it might have been kinder and more delicate to
leave unasked.

Eva blushed and simpered.

"I'll tell thee, Beatrice," said little Marie, dancing up.  "She's over
head and ears in love--so much over head,"--and Marie's hand went as
high as it would go above her own: "but it's my belief she has tumbled
in on the wrong side."

"`The wrong side'!" answered Beatrice, laughing.  "The wrong side of
love? or the wrong side of Eva?"

"The wrong side of Eva," responded Marie, with a positive little nod.
"As to love, I'm not quite sure that she knows much about it: for I
don't believe she cares half so much for Sir William as she cares for
being married.  That's the grand thing with her, so far as I can make
out.  And that's not my notion of love."

"Thou silly little child of twelve, what dost thou know about it?"
contemptuously demanded Eva.  "Thy time is not come."

"No, and I hope it won't," said Marie, "if I'm to make such a goose of
myself over it as thou dost."

"Marie, Marie!"

"It's true, Margaret!--Now, Beatrice, dost thou not think so?  She makes
a regular misery of it.  There is no living with her for a day or two
before he comes to see her.  She never gives him a minute's peace when
he is here; and if he looks at somebody else, she goes as black as a
thunder-cloud.  If he's half an hour late, she's quite sure he is
visiting some other gentlewoman, whom he loves better than he loves her.
She's for ever making little bits of misery out of nothing.  If he were
to call her `honey-sweet Eva' to-day, and only `sweet Eva' to-morrow,
she would be positive there was some shocking reason for it, instead of,
like a sensible girl, never thinking about it in that way at all."

Beatrice and Doucebelle were both laughing, and even Margaret joined in
a little.

"Of course," said Marie by way of postscript, "if Sir William had been
badly hurt in a tournament, or anything of that sort, I could understand
her worrying about it: or if he had told her that he did not love her, I
could understand that: but she worries for nothing at all!  If he does
not tell her that he loves her every time he comes, she fancies he
doesn't."

"Marie, don't be so silly!"

"Thanks, I'll try not," said Marie keenly.  "And she calls that love!
What dost thou think, Beatrice?"

"Why, I think it does not sound much like it, Marie--in thy
description."

"Why, what notion of love hast thou?" said Eva scornfully.  "I have not
forgotten how thou wert wont to talk of thy betrothed."

"But I never professed to love Leo," said Beatrice, looking up.  "How
could I, when I had not seen him?"

"Dost thou want to see, in order to love?" sentimentally inquired Eva.

"No," answered Beatrice, thoughtfully.  "But I want to know.  I might
easily love some one whom I had not seen with my eyes, if he were always
sending me messages and doing kind actions for me: but I could not love
somebody who was to me a mere name, and nothing more."

"It is plain thou hast no sensitiveness, Beatrice."

"I'd rather have sense,--wouldn't you?" said little Marie.

"As if one could not have both!" sneered Eva.

"Well, if one could, I should have thought thou wouldst," retorted
Marie.

"Well!  I don't understand you!" said Eva.  "I cannot care to be loved
with less than the whole heart.  I should not thank you for just the
love that you can spare from other people."

"But should not one have some to spare for other people?" suggested
Marie.

"That sounds as if one's heart were a box," said Beatrice, "that would
hold so much and no more.  Is it not more like a fountain, that can give
out perpetually and always have fresh supplies within?"

"Yes, for the beloved one," replied Eva, warmly.

"For all," answered Beatrice.  "That is a narrow heart which will hold
but one person."

"Well, I would rather be loved with the whole of a narrow heart than
with a piece of a broad one."

"O Eva!"

"What dost thou mean, Doucebelle?" said Eva, sharply, turning on her new
assailant.  "Indeed I would!  The man who loves me must love me
supremely--must care for nothing but me: must find his sweetest reward
for every thing in my smile, and his bitterest pain in my displeasure.
That is what I call love."

"Well!  I should call that something else--if Margaret wouldn't scold,"
murmured Marie in an undertone.

"What is that, Marie?" asked Margaret, with a smile.

"Self-conceit; and plenty of it," said the child.

"Ask Father Bruno what he thinks, Beatrice," suggested Margaret, after a
gentle "Hush!" to the somewhat too plain-spoken Marie.  "Thou canst do
it, but it would not come so well from us."

"Dost thou mean to say I am conceited, little piece of impertinence?"
inquired Eva, in no dulcet tones.

"Well, I thought thou saidst it thyself," was the response, for which
Marie got chased round the room with the wooden side of an embroidery
frame, and, being lithe as a monkey, escaped by flying to the Countess's
rooms, which communicated with those of her daughter by a private
staircase.

Father Bruno came up, as he often did, the same evening: but before
Beatrice had time to consult him, the small Countess of Eu appeared from
nowhere in particular, and put the crucial question in its crudest form.

"Please, Father Bruno, what is love?"

"Dost thou want telling?" inquired Bruno with evident amusement.

"Please, we all want telling, because we can't agree."

Bruno very rarely laughed, but he did now.

"Then, if you cannot agree, you certainly do need it.  I should rather
like to hear the various opinions."

"Oh!  Eva says--" began the child eagerly; but Bruno's hand, laid gently
on her head, stopped her.

"Wait, my child.  Let each speak for herself."

There was silence for a moment, for no one liked to begin--except Marie,
whom decorum alone kept silent.

"What didst thou say, Eva?"

"I believe I said, good Father, that I cared not for the love of any
that did not hold me first and best.  Nor do I."

"`Love seeketh not her own,'" said Bruno.  "That which seeks its own is
not love."

"What is it, Father?" modestly asked Doucebelle.

"It is self-love, my daughter; the worst enemy that can be to the true
love of God and man.  Real love is unselfish, unexacting, and immortal."

"But love can die, surely!"

"Saint Paul says the contrary, my daughter."

"It can kill, I suppose," said Margaret, in a low tone.

"Yes, the weak," replied Bruno.

"But, Father, was the holy Apostle not speaking of religious love?"
suggested Eva, trying to find a loophole.

"What is the alternative,--irreligious love?  I do not know of such a
thing, my daughter."

"But there is a wicked sort of love."

"Certainly not.  There are wicked passions.  But love can never be
wicked, because God is love."

"But people can love wickedly?" asked Eva, looking puzzled.

"I fail to see how any one can _love_ wickedly.  Self-love is always
wicked."

"Then, Father, if it be wicked, you call it self-love?" said Eva,
leaping (very cleverly, as she thought) to a conclusion.

"Scarcely," said Bruno, with a quiet smile.  "Say rather, my daughter,
that if it be self-love, I call it wicked."

The perplexed expression returned to Eva's face.

"My child, what is love?"

"Why, Father, that is just what we want to know," said Marie.

But Bruno waited for Eva's answer.

"I suppose," she said nervously, "it means liking a person, and wishing
for his company, and wanting him to love one."

"And I suppose that it is caring for him so much that thou wouldst count
nothing too great a sacrifice, to attain his highest good.  That is how
God loved us, my children."

Eva thought this extremely poor and tame, beside her own lovely ideal.

"Then," said Marie, "if I love Margaret, I shall want _her_ to be happy.
I shall not want her to make me happy, unless it would make her so."

"Right, my child," said Bruno, with a smile of approbation.  "To do
otherwise would be loving Marie, not Margaret."

"But, Father!" exclaimed Eva.  "Do you mean to say that if my betrothed
prefers to go hawking rather than sit with me, if I love him I shall
wish him to leave me?"

"Whom wouldst thou be loving, if not?"

"I could not wish him to go and leave me!"

"My child, there is a divine self-abnegation to which very few attain.
But those few come nearest to the imitation of Him who `pleased not
Himself,' and I think--God knoweth--often they are the happiest.  Let us
all ask God for grace to reach it.  `This is My commandment, that ye
have love one to another.'"

And, as was generally the case when he had said all he thought necessary
at the moment, Bruno rose, and with a benediction quitted the room.

"Call that loving!" said Eva, contemptuously, when he was gone.  "Poor
tame stuff!  I should not thank you for it."

"Well, I should," said Doucebelle, quietly.

"Oh, thou!" was Eva's answer, in the same tone.  "Why, thou hast no
heart to begin with."

Doucebelle silently doubted that statement.

"O Eva, for shame!" said Marie.  "Doucebelle always does what every body
wants her, unless she thinks it is wrong."

"Thou dost not call that love, I hope?"

"I think it is quite as like it as wishing people to do what they don't
want, to please you," said Marie, sturdily.

"I don't believe one of you knows any thing about it," loftily returned
Eva.  "If I had been Margaret, now, I could not have sat quietly to that
broidery.  I could not have borne it!"

Margaret looked up quickly, changed colour, and with a slight
compression of her lower lip, went back to her work in silence.

"But what wouldst thou have done, Eva?" demanded the practical little
Marie.  "Wouldst thou have stared out of the window all day long?"

"No!" returned Eva with fervent emphasis.  "I should have wept my life
away.  But Margaret is not like me.  She can get interested in work and
other things, and forget a hapless love, and outlive it.  It would kill
me in a month."

Margaret rose very quietly, put her frame by in the corner, and left the
room.  Beatrice, who had been silent for some time, looked up then with
expressive eyes.

"It is killing her, Eva.  My father told me so a week since.  He says he
is quite sure that the Countess is mistaken in fancying that she is
getting over it."

"She!  She is as strong as a horse.  And I don't think she ever felt it
much!  Not as I should have done.  I should have taken the veil that
very day.  Earth would have been a dreary waste to me from that instant.
I could not have borne to see a man again.  However many years I might
have lived, no sound but the _Miserere_--"

"But, Eva!  I thought thou wert going to die in a month."

"It is very rude to interrupt, Marie.  No sound but the _Miserere_ would
ever have broken the chill echoes of my lonely cell, nor should any
raiment softer than sackcloth have come near my seared and blighted
heart!"

"I should think it would get seared, with nothing but sackcloth," put in
the irrepressible little Lady of Eu.

"But what good would all that do, Eva?"

"Good, Beatrice!  What canst thou mean?  I tell thee, I could not have
borne any thing else."

"I don't believe much in thy sackcloth, Eva.  Thou wert making ever such
a fuss the other day because the serge of thy gown touched thy neck and
rubbed it, and Levina ran a ribbon down to keep it off thee."

"Don't be impertinent, Marie.  Of course, in such a case as that, I
could not think of mere inconveniences."

"Well, if I could not think of inconveniences when I was miserable, I
would try to make less fuss over them when I was happy."

"I am not happy, foolish child."

"Why, what's the matter?  Did Sir William look at thee only twenty-nine
times, instead of thirty, when he was here?"

"Thou art the silliest maiden of whom any one ever heard!"

"No, Eva; her match might be found, I think," said Beatrice.

Marie went off into convulsions of laughter, and flung herself on the
rushes to enjoy it with more freedom.

"I wonder which of you two is the funnier!" said she.

"What on earth is there comical about _me_?" exclaimed Eva, the more put
out because Beatrice and Doucebelle were both joining in Marie's
amusement.

"It is of no use to tell thee, Eva," replied Beatrice; "thou wouldst not
be able to see it."

"Can't I see any thing you can?" demanded Eva, irritably.

"Why, no!" said Marie, with a fresh burst: "canst thou see thine own
face?"

"What a silly child, to make such a speech as that!"

"No, Eva," said Beatrice, trying to stifle her laughter, increased by
Marie's witticism: "the child is any thing but silly."

"Well, I think you are all very silly, and I shall not talk to you any
more," retorted Eva, endeavouring to cover her retreat; but she was
answered only by a third explosion from Marie.

Half an hour later, the Countess, entering her bed-chamber, was startled
to find a girl crouched down by the side of the bed, her face hidden in
the coverlet, and her sunny cedar hair flowing over it in disorder.

"Why, what--Magot! my darling Magot! what aileth thee, my white dove?"

Margaret lifted her head when her mother spoke.  She had not been
shedding tears.  Perhaps she might have looked less terribly wan and
woeful if she had done so.

"Pardon me, Lady!  I came here to be alone."

The Countess sat down in the low curule chair beside her bed, and drew
her daughter close.  Margaret laid her head, with a weary sigh, on her
mother's knee, and cowered down again at her feet.

"And what made thee wish to be alone, my rosebud?"

"Something that somebody said."

"Has any one been speaking unkindly to my little one?"

"No, no.  They did not mean to be unkind.  Oh dear no! nothing of the
sort.  But--things sting--when people do not mean it."

The Countess softly stroked the cedar hair.  She hardly understood the
explanation.  Things of that sort did not sting her.  But this she
understood and felt full sympathy with--that her one cherished darling
was in trouble.

"Who was it, Magot?"

"Do not ask me, Lady.  I did not mean to complain of any one.  And
nobody intended to hurt me."

"What did she say?"

"She said,"--something like a sob came here--"that I was one who could
settle to work, and get interested in other things, and forget a lost
love.  But, she said, it would kill her in a month."

"Well, darling?  I began to hope that was true."

"No," came in a very low voice.  It was not a quick, warm denial like
that of Eva, yet one which sounded far more hopelessly conclusive.  "No.
O Mother, no!"

"And thou art still fretting in secret, my dove?"

"I do not know about fretting.  I think that is too energetic a word.
It would be better to say--dying."

"Magot, mine own, my sunbeam!  Do not use such words!"

"It is better to see the truth, Lady.  And that is true.  But I do not
think it will be over in a month."

The Countess could not trust herself to speak.  She went on stroking the
soft hair.

"Father Bruno says that love can kill weak people.  I suppose I am weak.
I feel as if I should be glad when it is all done with."

"When what is done with?" asked the Countess, in a husky tone.

"Living," said the girl.  "This weary round of dressing, eating,
working, talking, and sleeping.  When it is all done, and one may lie
down to sleep and not wake to-morrow,--I feel as if that were the only
thing which would ever make me glad any more."

"My heart!  Dost thou want to leave me?"

"I would have lived, Lady, for your sake, if I could have done.  But I
cannot.  The rosebud that you loved is faded: it cannot give out scent
any more.  It is not me,--me, your Margaret--that works, and talks, and
does all these things.  It is only my body, which cannot die quite so
fast as my soul.  My heart is dead already."

"My treasure!  I will have Master Aristoteles to see to thee.  I really
hoped thou wert getting over it."

"It is of no use trying to keep me," she answered quietly.  "You had
better let me go--Mother."

The Countess's reply was to clap her hands--at that time the usual
method of summoning a servant.  When Levina tapped at the door, instead
of bidding her enter, her mistress spoke through it.

"Tell Master Aristoteles that I would speak with him in this chamber."

The mother and daughter were both very still until the shuffling of the
physician's slippered feet was heard in the passage.  Then the Countess
roused herself and answered the appeal with "Come in."

"My Lady desired my attendance?"

"I did, Master.  I would fain have you examine this child.  She has a
strange fancy, which I should like to have uprooted from her mind.  She
imagines that she is going to die."

"A strange fancy indeed, if it please my Lady.  I see no sign of disease
at all about the damsel.  A little weakness, and low spirits,--no real
complaint whatever.  She might with some advantage wear the fleminum
[Note 1],--the blood seems a little too much in the head: and warm
fomentations would help to restore her strength.  Almond blossoms,
pounded with pearl, might also do something.  But, if it please my
Lady--let my Lady speak."

"I was only going to ask, Master, whether viper broth would be good for
her?"

"A most excellent suggestion, my Lady.  But, I was about to remark, the
physician of Saint Albans hath given me a most precious thing, which
would infallibly restore the damsel, even if she were at the gates of
death.  Three hairs of the beard of the blessed Dominic [Note 2], whom
our holy Father hath but now canonised.  If the damsel were to take one
of these, fasting, in holy water, no influence of the Devil could have
any longer power over her."

"_Ha, jolife_!" cried the Countess, clasping her hands.  "Magot, my
love, this is the very thing.  Thou must take it."

"I will take what you command, Lady."

But there was no enthusiasm in Margaret's voice.

"Then to-morrow morning, Master, do, I beseech you, administer this
precious cordial!"

"Lady, I will do so.  But it would increase the efficacy, if the damsel
would devoutly repeat this evening the Rosary of the holy Virgin, with
twelve Glorias and one hundred Aves."

"Get thee to it, quickly, Magot, my darling, and I will say them with
thee, which will surely be of still more benefit Master, I thank you
inexpressibly!"

And hastily rising, the Countess repaired to her oratory, whither
Margaret followed her.  Father Warner was there already, and he joined
in the prayers, which made them of infallible efficacy in the eyes of
the Countess.

At five o'clock the next morning, in the oratory, the holy hair was duly
administered to the patient.  All the priests were present except Bruno.
Master Aristoteles himself, after high mass, came forward with the
blessed relic,--a long, thick, black hair, immersed in holy water, in a
golden goblet set with pearls.  This Margaret obediently swallowed (of
course exclusive of the goblet); and it is not very surprising that a
fit of coughing succeeded the process.

"Avaunt thee, Satanas!" said Father Warner, making the sign of the cross
in the air above Margaret's head.

Father Nicholas kindly suggested that a little more of the holy water
might be efficacious against the manifest enmity of the foul Fiend.
Master Aristoteles readily assented; and the additional dose calmed the
cough: but probably it did not occur to any one to think whether unholy
water would not have done quite as well.

When they had come out into the bower, the Countess took her daughter in
her arms, and kissed her brow.

"Now, my Magot," said she playfully--it was not much forced, for her
faith was great in the blessed hair--"now, my Magot, thou wilt get well
again.  Thou must!"

Margaret looked up into the loving face above her, and a faint, sad
smile flitted across her lips.

"Think so, dear Lady, if it comfort thee," she said.  "It will not be
for long!"

Note 1.  A garment which was supposed to draw the blood downwards from
the brain.

Note 2.  "Hairs of a saint's beard, dipped in holy water, and taken
inwardly," are given by Fosbroke (Encyclopaedia of Antiquities, page
479) in his list of medieval remedies.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

FATHER BRUNO'S SERMON.

  "And speak'st thou thus,
  Despairing of the sun that sets to thee,
  And of the earthly love that wanes to thee,
  And of the Heaven that lieth far from thee?
  Peace, peace, fond fool!  One draweth near thy door,
  Whose footprints leave no print across the snow.
  Thy Sun has risen with comfort in His face,
  The smile of Heaven to warm thy frozen heart,
  And bless with saintly hand.  What! is it long
  To wait and far to go?  Thou shalt not go.
  Behold, across the snow to thee He comes,
  Thy Heaven descends, and is it long to wait?
  Thou shalt not wait.  `This night, this night,' He saith,
  `I stand at the door and knock.'"

  _Jean Ingelow_.

Earl Hubert went very pale when his wife told him of the conversation
which she had had with Margaret.  She was his darling, the child of his
old age, and he loved her more dearly than he was himself aware.  But
the blessed hair, and the holy water, were swallowed by him in a
figurative sense, with far more implicit faith than they had been,
physically, by Margaret.  He was quite easy in his mind after that
event.

The Countess was a little less so.  The saintly relic did not weigh
quite so much with her, and the white, still, unchanged face of the girl
weighed more.  With the restless anxiety of alarm only half awake, she
tried to bolster up her own hopes by appeals to every other person.

"Father Nicholas, do you think my daughter looks really ill?"

Father Nicholas, lost at the moment in the Aegean Sea, came slowly back
from "the many-twinkling smile of ocean" to the consideration of the
question referred to him.

"My Lady?  Ah, yes!  The damsel Margaret.  To be sure.  Well,--looking
ill?  I cannot say, Lady, that I have studied the noble damsel's looks.
Perhaps--is she a little paler than she used to be?  Ah, my Lady, a
course of the grand old Greek dramatists,--that would be the thing to
set her up.  She could not fail to be interested and charmed."

The Countess next applied to Father Warner.

"The damsel does look pale, Lady.  What wonder, when she has not
confessed for over a fortnight?  Get her well shriven, and you will see
she will be another maiden."

"She sighs, indeed, my Lady; and I do not think she sleeps well," said
Levina, who was the third authority.  "It strikes me, under my Lady's
pleasure, that she would be the better for a change."

This meant, that Levina was tired of Bury Saint Edmund's.

"Oh, there's nothing the matter with her!" said Eva, testily.  "She
never takes things to heart as I do.  She'll do well enough."

"Lady, I am very uneasy about dear Margaret," was Doucebelle's
contribution.  "I am sure she is ill, and unhappy too.  I only wish I
knew what to do for her."

Beatrice looked up with grave eyes.  "Lady, I would so gladly say No!
But I cannot do it."

The last person interrogated was Bruno; and by the time she came to him,
the Countess was very low-spirited.  His face went grave and sad.

"Lady, it never does good to shut one's eyes to the truth.  It is worse
pain in the end.  Yes: the damsel Margaret is dying."

"Dying!" shrieked the unhappy mother.  "Dying, Father Bruno!  You said
_dying_!"

"Too true, my Lady."

"But what can I do?  How am I to stop it?"

"Ah!" said Bruno, softly, as if to himself.  "There is a `Talitha Cumi'
from the other side too.  The Healer is on that side now.  Lady, He has
called her.  In her face, her voice, her very smile, it is only too
plain that she has heard His voice.  And there is no possibility of
disobeying it, whether it call the living to death, or the dead to
life."

"But how am I to help it?" repeated the poor Countess.

"You cannot help it.  Suffer her to rise and go to Him.  Let us only do
our utmost to make sure that it is to Him she is going."

"Oh, if it be so, would it be possible to have her spared the pains of
Purgatory?  Father, I would think it indeed a light matter to give every
penny and every jewel that I have!"

"Do so, if it will comfort you.  But for her, leave her in His hands
without whom not a sparrow falleth.  Lady, He loves her better than
you."

"Better?  It is not possible!  I would die for her!"

"He has died for her," answered Bruno, softly.  "And He is the Amen, the
Living One for ever: and He hath the keys of Hades and of death.  She
cannot die, Lady, until He bids it who counts every hair upon the head
of every child of His."

"But where will she be?--what will she be?" moaned the poor mother.

"If she be His, she will be where He is, and like Him."

"But He does not need her, and I do!"

"Nay, if He did not, He would not take her.  He loves her too well,
Lady, to deal with this weak and weary lamb as He deals with the strong
sheep of His flock.  He leads them for forty years, it may be, through
the wilderness: He teaches them by pain, sorrow, loneliness, unrest.
But she is too weak for such discipline, and she is to be folded early.
It is far better."

"For her,--well, perhaps--if she can be got past Purgatory.  But for
me!"

"For each of you, what she needs, Lady."

"O Father Bruno, she is mine only one!"

"Lady, can you not trust her in His hands who gave His Only One for her
salvation?"

One evening about this time, Levina came up with the news that Abraham
of Norwich wished to see the Damoiselle de Malpas.  Her words were civil
enough, but her tone never was when she spoke to Beatrice; and on this
occasion she put an emphasis on the name, which was manifestly not
intended to be flattering.  Beatrice, however, took no notice of it.
Indeed, she was too glad to see Abraham to feel an inclination to
quarrel with the person who announced his arrival in any terms whatever.
She threw aside her work in haste, and ran down into the hall.

"My Belasez, light of mine eyes!" said the old man fervently, as he
folded her in his arms and blessed her.  "Ah, there is not much light
for the old pedlar's eyes now!"

"Dost thou miss me, my father?"

"Miss thee!  Ah, my darling, how little thou knowest.  The sun has gone
down, and the heavens are covered with clouds."

"Was my mother very angry after I went away?"

It was not natural to speak of Licorice by any other name.

"Don't mention it, Belasez!  She beat me with the broom, until
Delecresse interfered and pulled her off.  Then she spat at me, and
cursed me in the name of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the twelve
tribes of Israel.  She threw dirt at my beard, child."

The last expression, as Beatrice well knew, was an Oriental metaphor.

"Is she satisfied now?"

"Satisfied!  What dost thou mean by satisfied?  She gives me all the
sitten [Note 1] porridge.  That is not very satisfying, for one can't
eat much of it.  I break my fast with Moss, when I can."

Beatrice could not help laughing.

"My poor father!  I wish I could just fly in every morning, to make the
porridge for thee."

"Blessed be the memory of the Twelve Patriarchs!  Child, thou wouldst
scarcely escape with whole bones.  If Licorice hated Christians before,
she hates them tenfold now.--Dost thou think, Belasez, that the Lady
lacks anything to-day?  I have one of the sweetest pieces of pale blue
Cyprus that ever was woven, and some exquisite gold Damascene stuffs as
well."

"I am sure, Father, she will like to look at them, and I have little
doubt she will buy."

"How are matters going with thee, child?  Has thy father got leave to
abandon his vows?"

"He hopes to receive it in a few days."

"Well, well!  Matters were better managed in Israel.  Our vows were
always terminable.  And Nazarites did not shut themselves up as if other
men were not to be touched, like unclean beasts.  We always washed
ourselves, too.  There is an old monk at Norwich, that scents the street
whenever he goes up it: and not with otto of roses.  I turn up a side
lane when I see him coming.  Even the Saracens are better than that.  I
never knew any but Christians who thought soap and water came from
Satan."  [Note 2.]

"Well, we all wash ourselves here," said Beatrice, laughing, "unless it
be Father Warner; I will not answer for him."

"This world is a queer place, my Belasez, full of crooked lanes and
crookeder men and women.  Men are bad enough, I believe: but women!--"

Beatrice could guess of what woman Abraham was especially thinking.

"Is Cress come with thee, my father?"

"No--not _here_," answered the old Jew, emphatically.  "And he never
can."

"Why?"

"Belasez, I have a sad tale to tell thee."

"O my father!  Is there anything wrong with Cress?"

It was impossible to recognise Delecresse as uncle instead of brother.

"Ay, child, wrong enough!" said Abraham sadly.

"Is he so ill, my father?"

"Ah, my Belasez, there is a leprosy of the soul, worse than that of the
body.  And there is no priest left in Israel who can purge that!  Child,
hast thou never wondered how Sir Piers de Rievaulx came to know of the
damsel's marriage--she that is the Lady's daughter?"

"Margaret?  I never could tell how it was."

"It was Delecresse who told him."

"Delecresse!"

"Ah, yes--may the God of Israel forgive him!"

"But how did Delecresse know?"

"I fancy he guessed it, partly--and perhaps subtly extracted some avowal
from thee, in a way which thou didst not understand at the time."

"But, Father, I could not have told him, even unwittingly, for I did not
know it myself.  I remember his asking me who Sir Richard was, as we
passed through the hall,--yes, and he said to old Hamon that he owed him
a grudge.  He asked me, too, after that, if Sir Richard were attached to
Margaret."

"What didst thou say?"

"That I thought it might be so; but I did not know."

"Well!  I am thankful thou couldst tell him no more.  I suppose he
pieced things together, and very likely jumped the last yard.  Howbeit,
he did it.  My son, my only one!  If there were an altar yet left in
Israel, it should smoke with a hecatomb of lambs for him."

"All Israelites would not think it wicked, my father.  They think all
Gentiles fair prey."

"What, after they have eaten of their salt?  Child, when the Lady had
been kind to thee, I could not have touched a hair of any head she
loved.  Had the Messiah come that day, and all Gentiles been made our
bond-slaves, I would have besought for her to fall to me, that I might
free her without an instant's suspense."

"Yes, my father, _thou_ wouldst," answered Beatrice, affectionately.
"But I do not think thou ever didst hate Christians as some of our
nation do."

"Child, Belasez! how could I, when the best love of my white dove's
heart had been given to a Christian and a Gentile?  I loved her, more
than thou canst imagine.  But would my love have been true, had I hated
what she loved best?  Where is thy father, my darling?"

Beatrice was just about to say that she could not tell, when she looked
up and saw him.  The greeting between Abraham and Bruno was very cordial
now.  Bruno smiled gravely when he heard of the further exploits of
Licorice with the broom; but a very sad, almost stern, expression came
into his eyes, when he was told the discovery concerning Delecresse.

"Keep it quiet, my father," he said.  "The Lord will repay.  May it be
not in justice, but with His mercy!"

Then Abraham and his pack were had up to the bower, and large purchases
made of Damascene and Cyprus stuffs.  When he went away, Bruno walked
with him across the yard, and as they clasped hands in farewell,
suddenly asked him what he thought of the damsel Margaret.

"Can there be any question?" answered Abraham, pityingly.  "Hath not
Azrael [the Angel of Death] stamped her with his signet?"

"I fear so.  Wilt thou pray for her, my father?"

Abraham looked up in amazement.

"A Christian ask the prayers of a Jew!" exclaimed he.

"Why not?" replied Bruno.  "Were not Christ and all His apostles Jews?
And thou art a good and true man, my father.  The God of Israel heareth
the prayers of the righteous."

"Canst thou account a Jew righteous?--one who believes not in thy
Messiah?"

"I am not so sure of that," said Bruno, his eyes meeting those of
Abraham in full.  "I think thy heart and conscience are convinced, but
thou art afraid to declare it."

Abraham's colour rose a little.

"May Adonai lead us both to His truth!" he replied.

But Bruno noticed that he made no attempt to deny the charge.

Bruno's chief wish now was to get hold of Margaret, and find out the
exact state of her mind.  Without knowing his wish, she helped him by
asking him to hear her confession.  Bruno rose at once.

"Now?" said Margaret, with a little surprise.

"There is no time but now," was the reply.

They went into the oratory, and closed the door on curious ears; and
Margaret poured out the secrets of her restless and weary heart.

"I longed to confess to you, Father, for I fancied that you would
understand me better than the other priests.  You know what love is; I
am not sure that they do: and Father Warner at least thinks it weakness,
if not sin.  And now tell me, have you any balm for such a sorrow as
mine?  Of course it can never be undone; that I know too well.  And I do
not think that any thing could make me live; nor do I wish it.  If I
only knew where it is that I am going!"

"Let the where alone," answered Bruno.  "Daughter, to whom art thou
going?  Is it to a Stranger, or to Him whom thy soul loveth?"

Not unnaturally, she misunderstood the allusion.

"No; he will not necessarily die, because I do."

She was only thinking of Richard.

"My child!" said Bruno, gently, "thou art going to the presence of the
Lord Jesus Christ.  Dost thou know any thing about Him?"

"I know, of course, what the Church teaches."

"Well; but dost thou know what He teaches?  Is He as dear to thee as
thine earthly love?"

"No."  The reply was in a rather shamefaced tone; but there was no
hesitation about it.

"Is He as dear to thee as the Earl thy father?"

"No."

"Is He as dear to thee as any person in this house, whomsoever it be,--
such as thou hast been acquainted with, and accustomed to, all thy
life?"

"Father," said the low, sad voice, "I am afraid you are right.  I do not
know Him."

"Wilt thou not ask Him, then, to reveal Himself to thee?"

"Will He do it, Father?"

"`Will He'!  Has He not been waiting to do it, ever since thou wert
brought to Him in baptism?"

"But He can never fill up this void in my heart!"

"He could, my daughter.  But I am not sure that He will, in this world.
I rather think that He sees how weak thou art, and means to gather thee
early into the warm shelter of His safe and happy fold."

"Father, I feel as if I could not be happy, even in Heaven, if _he_ were
not there.  I can long for the grave, because it will be rest and
silence.  But for active happiness, such as I suppose they have in
Heaven,--Father, I do not want that; I could not bear it.  I would
rather stay on earth--where Richard is."

"Poor child!" said Bruno half involuntarily.  "My daughter, it is very
natural.  It must be so.  `Where is thy treasure, there is also thine
heart.'"

"And," the low voice went on, "if I could know that he had given over
loving me, I fancy it would be easier to go."

Bruno thought it best rather to raise her thoughts out of that channel
than to encourage them to flow in it.

"My child, Christ has not given over loving thee."

"That does not seem real, like the other.  And, O Father!  He is not
Richard!"

"Dear child, it is far more real: but thine heart is too sore to suffer
thine eyes to see it.  Dost thou not know that our Lord is saying to
thee in this very sorrow, `Come unto Me, and I will give thee rest'?"

"It would be rest, if He would give me Richard," she said.  "There is
but that one thing for me in all the world."

Bruno perceived that this patient required not the plaster, as he had
supposed, but the probe.  Her heart was not merely sore; it was
rebellious.  She was hardening herself against God.

"No, my daughter; thou art not ready for rest.  There can be no peace
between the King and an unpardoned rebel.  Thou art that, Margaret de
Burgh.  Lay down thine arms, and put thyself in the King's mercy."

"Father!" said the girl, in a voice which was a mixture of surprise and
alarm.

"Child, He giveth not account of any of His matters.  Unconditional
submission is what He requires of His prisoners.  Thou wouldst fain
dictate terms to thy Sovereign: it cannot be.  Thou must come into His
terms, if there is to be any peace between Him and thee.  Yet even for
thee there is a message of love.  He is grieved at the hardness of thine
heart.  Listen to His voice,--`It is hard _for thee_ to kick against the
pricks.'  It is for thy sake that He would have thee come back to thine
allegiance."

The answer was scarcely what he expected.

"Father, it is of no use to talk to me.  I hear what you say, of course;
but it does me no good.  My heart is numb."

"Thou art right," gently replied Bruno.  "The south wind must blow upon
the garden, ere the spices can flow out.  Ask the Lord--I will ask Him
also--to pour on thee the gift of the Holy Ghost."

"How many Paters?" said the girl in a weary tone.  "One will do, my
daughter, if thou wilt put thy whole heart into it."

"I can put my heart into nothing."

"Then say to Him this only--`Lord, I bring Thee a dead heart, that Thou
mayest give it life.'"

She said the words after him, mechanically, like a child repeating a
lesson.  "How long will it take?"

"He knows--not I."

"But suppose I die first?"

"The Lord will not let thee die unsaved, if thou hast a sincere wish for
salvation.  He wants it more than thou."

"He wants it!" repeated Margaret wonderingly.  "He wants it.  He wants
thee.  Did He die for thee, child, that He should let thee go lightly?
Thou art as precious in His sight as if the world held none beside
thee."

"I did not think I was that to any one--except my parents and--and
Richard."

"Thou art that, incomparably more than to any of them, to the Lord
Jesus."

The momentary exhibition of feeling was past.

"Well!" she said, with a dreary sigh.  "It may be so.  But I cannot care
about it."

Bruno's answer was not addressed to Margaret.

"Lord, care about it for her!  Breathe upon this dead, that she may
live!  Save her in spite of herself!"

There was a slight pause, and then Bruno quietly gave the absolution,
and the confession was over.

The next Sunday, there was the unwonted occurrence of a sermon after
vespers.  Sermons were not fashionable at that time.  When preached at
all, they were usually extremely dry scholastic disquisitions.  Father
Warner had given two during his abode at the Castle: and both were
concerning the duty of implicit obedience to the Church.  Father
Nicholas had preached about a dozen; some on the virtues--dreary
classical essays; three concerning the angels; and one (on a Good
Friday) which was a series of fervent declamations on the Passion.

But this time it was Bruno who preached; and on a very different topic
from any mentioned above.  His clear, ringing voice was in itself a much
more interesting sound than Father Nicholas's drowsy monotone, or Father
Warner's dry staccato.  He at least was interested in his subject; no
one could doubt that.  As soon as the last note of the last chant had
died away, Bruno came forward to the steps of the altar.  He had given
due notice of his intention beforehand, and every one (with Beatrice in
particular) was prepared to listen to him.

The text itself--to hearers unfamiliar with the letter of Scripture--was
rather a startling one.

"`O all ye that pass by the way, hearken and see if there be sorrow like
unto my sorrow, wherewith the Lord hath trodden me as in the wine-press,
in the day of the wrath of His anger.'"

Margaret looked up quickly.  This seemed to her the very language of her
own heart.  She at least was likely to be attentive.

Perhaps no medieval preacher except Bruno de Malpas would even have
thought of alluding to the literal and primary meaning of the words.
From the first moment of their joint existence, Jerusalem and Rome have
been enemies and rivals.  Not content with, so far as in her lay,
blotting out the very name of Israel from under heaven, Rome has calmly
arrogated to herself--without even offering proof of it--that right to
the promises made to the fathers, which, Saint Paul tells us, belongs in
a higher and richer sense to the invisible Church of Christ than to the
literal and visible Israel.  But Rome goes further than the Apostle: for
in her anxiety to claim the higher sense for herself, she denies the
lower altogether.  No Romanist will hear with patience of any national
restoration of Israel.  And whether the Anglo-Israelite theory be true
or false, it is certainly, as a theory, exceedingly unpalatable to Rome.

With respect, moreover, to this particular passage, it had become so
customary to refer it to the sufferings of Christ, that its original
application to the destruction of Jerusalem had been almost forgotten.

But here, Bruno's Jewish proclivities stood him in good stead.  He
delighted Beatrice by fully stating the original reference of the
passage.  But then he went on to say that it was no longer applicable to
the Babylonish captivity.  Since that time, there had been another
sorrow to which the sufferings of Israel were not to be compared--to
which no affliction ever suffered by humanity could be comparable for a
moment.  He told them, in words that burned, of that three hours'
darkness that might be felt--of that "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani" into
which was more than concentrated every cry of human anguish since the
beginning of the world.  And then he looked, as it were, straight into
the heart's depths of every one of his hearers, and he said to each one
of those hearts, "This was your doing!"  He told them that for every sin
of every one among them, that Sacrifice was a sufficient atonement: and
that if for any one the atonement was not efficacious, that was not
Christ's fault, but his own.  There was room at the marriage-supper for
every pauper straying on the high-way; and if one of them were not
there, it would be because he had refused the invitation.

Then Bruno turned to the other half of his subject, and remarked that
every man and woman was tempted to think that there was no sorrow like
to his sorrow.  Yet there was a balm for all sorrow: but it was only to
be had at one place.  The bridge which had been strong enough to bear
the weight of Christ and His cross, carrying with Him all the sins and
sorrows of all the world for ever, would be strong enough to bear any
sorrow of theirs.  But so long as man persisted in saying, "_My_ will be
done," he must not imagine that God would waste mercy in helping him.
"Not my will, but Thine," must always precede the sending of the
strengthening angel.  And lastly, he reminded them that God sent grief
to them for their own sakes.  It was not for His sake.  It gave Him no
pleasure; nay, it grieved Him, when He had to afflict the children of
men.  It was the medicine without which they could not recover health:
and He always gave the right remedy, in the right quantities, and at the
right time.

"And now," said Bruno at last, "ye into whose hands the Great Physician
hath put this wholesome yet bitter cup,--how are ye going to treat it?
Will ye dash it down, and say, `I will have none of this remedy?'  For
the end of that is death, the death eternal.  Will ye drink it, only
because ye have no choice, with a wry face and a bitter tongue,
blaspheming the hand that gives it?  It will do you no good then; it
will work for evil.  Or will ye take it meekly, with thanksgiving on
your lips, though there be tears in your eyes, knowing that His will is
better than yours, and that He who bore for you the pangs that no man
can know, is not likely to give you any bitterness that He can spare
you?  Trust me, the thanksgivings that God loves best, are those sobbed
from lips that cannot keep still for sorrow.

"And, brethren, there is no sorrow in Heaven.  `Death there shall be no
more, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor pain shall be any more.'  [Note
3.]  We who are Christ's shall be there before long."

He ended thus, almost abruptly.

The chapel was empty, and the congregation were critical.  Earl Hubert
thought that Father Bruno had a good flow of language, and could preach
an excellent discourse.  The Countess would have preferred a different
subject: it was so melancholy!  Sir John thought it a pity that man had
been wasted on the Church.  Hawise supposed that he had said just what
was proper.  Beatrice wished he would preach every day.  Eva was
astonished at her; did she really like to listen to such dolorous stuff
as that?  Doucebelle wondered that any one should think it dolorous; she
had enjoyed it very much.  Marie confessed to having dropped asleep, and
dreamed that Father Bruno gave her a box of bonbons.

There was one of them who said nothing, because her heart was too full
for speech.  But the south wind had begun to blow upon the garden.  On
that lonely and weary heart God had looked in His mercy that day, and
had said, "Live!"

Too late for earthly life.  That was sapped at the root.  God knew that
His best kindness to Margaret de Burgh was that He should take her away
from the evil to come.

Note 1.  Burnt to the pan: a variety of porridge which few would wish to
taste twice.

Note 2.  "These monks imagined that holiness was often proportioned to a
saint's filthiness--Saint Francis discovered, by certain experience,
that the devils... were animated by clean clothing to tempt and seduce
the wearers; and one of their heroes declares that the purest souls are
in the dirtiest bodies...  Brother Juniper was a gentleman perfectly
pious, on this principle; indeed, so great was his merit in this species
of mortification, that a brother declared he could always nose Brother
Juniper when within a mile of the monastery, provided the wind were at
the due point."--Disraeli's _Curiosities of Literature_, Volume One,
page 92.

Note 3.  All quotations from Scripture in this story are of course taken
from the Vulgate, except those made by Jews.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

EVIL TIDINGS.

  "Too tired for rapture, scarce I reach and cling
  To One that standeth by with outstretched hand;
  Too tired to hold Him, if He hold not me:
  Too tired to long but for one heavenly thing,--
  Rest for the weary, in the Promised Land."

Permission for Bruno to lay aside the habit of Saint Augustine reached
Bury Castle very soon after his sermon.  And with it came two other
items of news,--the one, that Bishop Grosteste offered him a rich living
in his diocese; the other, that the Bishop's life had been attempted by
poison.  It was not to be wondered at in the least, since Grosteste had
coolly declared the reigning Pope Innocent to be an exact counterpart of
Anti-Christ (for which the head of the Church rewarded him by terming
him a wicked old dotard), and his attachment to monachism in general was
never allowed to stand in the way of the sternest rebuke to disorderly
monks in particular.  He also presumed to object to his clergy having
constant recourse to Jewish money-lenders, and especially interfered
with their favourite amusement of amateur theatricals, which he was so
unreasonable as to think unbecoming the clerical office.

Bruno hastened to the Countess with the news, accompanying it by warm
thanks for the shelter afforded to himself and his daughter, and
informing her that he would no longer burden her with either.  But she
looked very grave.

"Father Bruno," she said, "I have a boon to ask."

"Ask it freely, Lady.  I am bound to you in all ways."

"Then I beg that you and Beatrice will continue here, so long--_ha,
chetife_!--so long as my child lives."

Father Bruno gravely assented.  He knew too well that would not be long.
Yet it proved longer than either of them anticipated.

Stormy times were at hand.  The Papal Legate had effected between Earl
Hubert and the Bishop of Winchester a reconciliation which resembled a
quiescent volcano; but Hubert was put into a position of sore peril by
his royal brother-in-law of Scotland, who coolly sent an embassy to King
Henry, demanding as his right that the three northernmost counties of
England should be peaceably resigned to him.  After putting him off for
a time by an evasive message, King Henry consented to meet Alexander at
York, and discuss the questions on which they differed.  His Britannic
Majesty was still vexing his nobles by the favour he showed to
foreigners.  At this time he demanded a subsidy of one-thirtieth of all
the property in the kingdom, which they were by no means inclined to
give him.  As a sop to Cerberus, the King promised thenceforth to abide
by the advice of his native nobility, and the subsidy was voted.  But
his next step was to invite his father-in-law, the Count of Provence,
and to shower upon him the gold so unwillingly granted.  The nobles were
more angry than ever, and the King's own brother, Richard Earl of
Cornwall, was the first to remonstrate.  Then Archbishop Edmund of
Canterbury took a journey to Rome, and declined to return, even when
recalled by the Legate.  But the grand event of that year was the final
disruption of Christendom.  The Greek Church had many a time quarrelled
with the Latin, chiefly on two heads,--the worship of images and the
assumption of universal primacy.  On the first count they differed with
very little distinction, since the Greek Church allowed the full worship
of pictures, but anathematised every body who paid reverence to
statues,--a rather odd state of things to Protestant eyes.  Once
already, the Eastern Church had seceded, but the quarrel was patched up
again.  But after the secession of 1237, there was never to be peace
between East and West again.

The new year came in with a royal marriage.  There were curious
circumstances attending it, for the parties married in spite of the
King, who was obliged to give away the bride, his sister Alianora,
"right sore against his will:" and though the bride had taken the vow of
perpetual widowhood, [Note 1] they did not trouble themselves about a
Papal dispensation till they had been married for some weeks.  The
bridegroom was the young Frenchman, Sir Simon de Montfort, whom the King
at last came to fear more than thunder and lightning.  The English
nobility were extremely displeased, for they considered that the
Princess had been married beneath her dignity; but since from first to
last she had had her own wilful way, it was rather unreasonable in the
nobles to vent their wrath upon the King.  They rose against him
furiously, headed by his own brother, and by the husband of the Princess
Marjory of Scotland, till at last the royal standard was deserted by all
but one man,--that true and loyal patriot, Hubert, Earl of Kent,--the
man whom no oppression could alienate from the Throne, and whom no
cruelty could silence when he thought England in danger.  But now his
prestige was on the wane.  The nobles were not afraid of him, on account
of his old age, his wisdom, and a vow which he had taken never to bear
arms again.  In vain King Henry appealed privately to every peer, asking
if his fidelity might be relied on.  From every side defiant messages
came back.  The citizens of London, as their wont was, were
exceptionally disloyal.  Then he sent the Legate to his brother, urging
peace.  Cornwall refused to listen.  At last, driven into a corner, the
King begged for time, and it was granted him, until the first Monday in
Lent.  When that day came, the nobles assembled in grand force at
London, to come to a very lame and impotent conclusion.  Earl Richard of
Cornwall, the King's brother, suddenly announced that he and his new
brother-in-law, Montfort, had effected a complete reconciliation.  The
other nobles were very angry at the desertion of their leader, and
accused him, perhaps not untruly, of having been bribed into this
conduct: for Cornwall was quite as extravagant, and nearly as
acquisitive, as his royal brother.  Just at this time died Joan, Queen
of Scotland, the eldest sister of King Henry, of rapid decline, while on
her way home from England; and her death was quickly followed by that of
Hubert's great enemy, the Bishop of Winchester.  The filling up of the
vacant see caused one of the frequent struggles between England and
Rome.  The Chapter of Winchester wished to have the Bishop of
Chichester: the King was determined to appoint the Queen's uncle,
Guglielmo of Savoy; and, as he often did to gain his ends, Henry sided
with Rome against his own people.

The disruption between the Greek and Latin Churches being now an
accomplished fact, the Archbishop of Antioch went the length of
excommunicating the Pope and the whole Roman Church, asserting that if
there were to be a supreme Pontiff, he had the better claim to the
title.  This event caused a disruption on a small scale in Margaret's
bower, where Beatrice scandalised the fair community by wanting to know
why the Pope should not be excommunicated if he deserved it.

"Excommunicate the head of the Church!" said Hawise, in a horrified
tone.

"Well, but here are two Churches," persisted Beatrice.  "If the Pope can
excommunicate the Archbishop, what is to prevent the Archbishop from
excommunicating the Pope?"

"Poor creature!" said Hawise pityingly.

"The Eastern schism is no Church!" added Eva.

"Oh, I do wish some of you would tell me what you mean by a Church!"
exclaimed Beatrice, earnestly, laying down her work.  "What makes one
thing a Church, and another a schism?"

But that was just what nobody could tell her.  Hawise leaped the chasm
deftly by declaring it an improper question.  Eva said, "_Si bete_!" and
declined to say more.

"Well, I may be a fool," said Beatrice bluntly: "but I do not think you
are much better if you cannot tell me."

"Of course I could tell thee, if I chose!" answered Eva, with lofty
scorn.

"Then why dost thou not?" was the unanswerable reply.

Eva did not deign to respond.  But when Bruno next appeared, Beatrice
put her question.

"The Church is what Christ builds on Himself: a schism is bred in man's
brain, contrary to holy Scripture."

In saying which, Bruno only quoted Bishop Grosteste.

"But, seeing men are fallible, how then can any human system claim to be
at all times The Church?" asked Beatrice.

"The true Church is not a human system at all," said he.

"Father, Beatrice actually fancies that the Archbishop of Antioch could
excommunicate the holy Father!" observed Hawise in tones of horror.

"I suppose any authority can excommunicate those below him, in the
Church visible," said Bruno, calmly: "in the invisible Jerusalem above,
which is the mother of us all, none excommunicates but God.  `Every
branch in Me, not fruit-bearing, He taketh it away.'  My daughters, it
would do us more good to bear that in mind, than to blame either the
Pope or the Archbishop."

And he walked away, as was his wont when he had delivered his sentence.

That afternoon, the Countess sent for Beatrice and Doucebelle to her own
bower.  They found her seated by the window, with unusually idle hands,
and an expression of sore disturbance on her fair, serene face.

"There is bad news come, my damsels," she said, when the girls had made
their courtesies.  "And I do not know how to tell my Magot.  Perhaps one
of you might manage it better than I could.  And she had better be told,
for she is sure to hear it in some way, and I would fain spare the child
all I can."

"About Sir Richard the Earl, Lady?" asked Beatrice.

"Yes, of course.  He is married, Beatrice."

"To whom, Lady?" asked Beatrice, calmly but Doucebelle uttered an
ejaculation under her breath.

"To Maud, daughter of Sir John de Lacy, the Earl of Lincoln.  It is no
fault of his, poor boy!  The Lord King would have it so.  And the King
has made a good thing of it, for I hear that the Earl of Lincoln has
given him above three thousand gold pennies to have the marriage, and
has remitted a debt of thirteen hundred more.  A good thing for him!--
and it may be quite as well for Richard.  But my poor child!  I cannot
understand how it is that she does not rouse up and forget her
disappointment.  It is very strange."

It was very strange, to the mother who loved Margaret so dearly, and yet
understood her so little.  But Doucebelle silently thought that any
thing else would have been yet stranger.

"And you would have us tell her, Lady?"

"It would be as well.  Really, I cannot!"

The substratum was showing itself for a moment in the character of the
Countess.

"Dulcie would do it better than I," said Beatrice, "I am a bad hand at
beating about the bush.  I might do it too bluntly."

"Then, Dulcie, do tell her!" pleaded the Countess.

"Very well, Lady."  But all Doucebelle's unselfishness did not prevent
her from feeling that she would almost rather have had any thing else to
do.

She went back slowly to Margaret's bower, tenanted at that moment by no
one but its owner.  Margaret looked up as Doucebelle entered, and read
her face as easily as possible.

"Evil tidings!" she said, quietly enough.  "For thee, or for me,
Dulcie?"

Doucebelle came and knelt beside her.

"For me, then!"  Margaret's voice trembled a little.  "Go on, Dulcie!
Richard--"

She could imagine no evil tidings except as associated with him.

Doucebelle conquered her unwillingness to speak, by a strong effort.

"Yes, dear Margaret, it is about him.  The--"

"Is he dead?" asked Margaret, hurriedly.

"No."

"I thought, if it had been that,"--she hesitated.

"Margaret, didst thou not expect something more to happen?"

"Something--what?  I see!" and her tone changed.  "It is marriage."

"Yes, Sir Richard is married to--"

"No!  Don't tell me to whom.  I am afraid I should hate her.  And I do
not want to do that."

Doucebelle was silent.

"Was it his doing," asked Margaret in a low voice, "or did the Lord King
order it?"

"Oh, it was the Lord King's doing, entirely, the Lady says."

"O Dulcie!  I ought to wish it were his, because there would be more
likelihood of his being happy: but I cannot--I cannot!"

"My poor Margaret, I do not wonder!" answered Doucebelle tenderly.

"Is it very wicked," added Margaret, in a voice of deep pain, "not to be
able to wish him to be happy, without me?  It is so hard, Dulcie!  To be
shut out from the warmth and the sunlight, and to see some one else let
in!  I suppose that is a selfish feeling.  But it is so hard!"

"My poor darling!" was all that Doucebelle could say.

"Father Bruno said, that so long as we kept saying, `My will be done,'
we must not expect God to comfort us.  Yet how are we to give over?  O
Dulcie, I thought I was beginning to submit, and this has stirred all up
again.  My heart cries out and says, `This shall not be!  I will not
have it so!'  And if God will have it so!--How am I to learn to bend my
will to His?"

Neither of the girls had heard any one enter, and they were a little
startled when a third voice replied--

"None but Himself can teach thee that, my daughter.  If thou canst not
yet give Him thy will, ask Him to take it in spite of thee."

"I have done that, already, Father Bruno."

"Then thou mayest rest assured that He will do all that is lacking."

That night, Bruno said to Beatrice,--"That poor, dear child!  I am sure
God is teaching her.  But to-day's news has driven another nail into her
coffin."

Would it have been easier, or harder, if the veil could have been lifted
which hid from Margaret the interior of Gloucester Castle?  To the eyes
of the world outside, the young Earl behaved like any other bridegroom.
He brought the Lady Maud to his home, placed her in sumptuous
apartments, surrounded her with obsequious attendants, provided her with
all the comforts and luxuries of life: but there his attentions ended.
For four years his step never crossed the threshold of the tower where
she resided, and they met only on ceremonial occasions.  Wife she never
was to him, until for twelve months the cold stones of Westminster Abbey
had lain over the fair head of his Margaret, the one love of his tried
and faithful heart.

Having now completed the wreck of these two young lives, His Majesty
considerately intimated to Richard de Clare, that in return for the
unusual favours which had been showered upon him, he only asked of him
to feel supremely happy, and to be devoted to his royal service for the
term of his natural life.

Only!

How often it is the case that we imagine our friends to be blessing us
with every fibre of their hearts, when it is all that they can do to
pray for grace to enable them to forgive us!

Not that Richard did any thing of the kind.  So far from it, that he
registered a vow in Heaven, that if ever the power to do it should fall
into his hands, he would repay that debt an hundredfold.

The two chaplains of the Earl had shown no interest whatever in Margaret
and her troubles.  Father Warner despised all human affections of
whatever kind, with the intensity of a nature at once cold and narrow.
Father Nicholas was of a far kindlier disposition, but he was completely
engrossed with another subject.  Alchemy was reviving.  The endless
search for the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life, and other
equally desirable and unattainable objects, had once more begun to
engage the energies of scientific men.  The real end which they were
approaching was the invention of gunpowder, which can hardly be termed a
blessing to the world at large.  But Father Nicholas fell into the
snare, and was soon absolutely convinced that only one ingredient was
wanting to enable him to discover the elixir of life.  That one
ingredient, of priceless value, remains undiscovered in the nineteenth
century.

Yet one thing must be said for these medieval philosophers,--that except
in the way of spending money, they injured none but themselves.  Their
search for the secret of life did not involve the wanton torture of
helpless creatures, nor did their boasted knowledge lead them to the
idiotic conclusion that they were the descendants of a jelly-fish.

Oh, this much-extolled, wise, learned, supercilious Nineteenth Century!
Is it so very much the superior of all its predecessors, as it
complacently assumes to be?

King Alexander of Scotland married his second wife in the May of 1239,
to the great satisfaction of his sisters.  The Countess of Kent thought
that such news as this really ought to make Margaret cheer up: and she
was rather perplexed (which Doucebelle was not by any means) at the
discovery that all the gossip on that subject seemed only to increase
her sadness.  An eclipse of the sun, which occurred on the third of
June, alarmed the Countess considerably.  Some dreadful news might
reasonably be expected after that.  But no worse occurrence (from her
point of view) happened than the birth of a Prince--afterwards to be
Edward the First, who has been termed "the greatest of all the
Plantagenets."

The occasion of the royal christening was eagerly seized upon, as a
delightful expedient for the replenishing of his exhausted treasury, by
the King who might not inappropriately be termed the least of the
Plantagenets.  Messengers were sent with tidings of the auspicious event
to all the peers, and if the gifts with which they returned laden were
not of the costliest description, King Henry dismissed them in disgrace.
"God gave us this child," exclaimed a blunt Norman noble, "but the King
sells him to us!"

Four days after the Prince's birth came another event, which to one at
least in Bury Castle, was enough to account for any portentous eclipse.
The Countess found Beatrice drowned in tears.

"Beatrice!--my dear maiden, what aileth thee?  I have scarcely ever seen
thee shed tears before."

The girl answered by a passionate gesture.

"`Oh that mine head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that
I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!'"

"_Ha, chetife_!--what is the matter?"

"Lady, there has been an awful slaughter of my people."  And she stood
up and flung up her hands towards heaven, in a manner which seemed to
the Countess worthy of some classic prophetess.  "`Remember, O Adonai,
what is come upon us; consider, and behold our reproach!'  `O God, why
hast Thou cast us off for ever? why doth Thine anger smoke against the
sheep of Thy pasture?  We see not our signs: there is no more any
prophet.'  `Arise, O Adonai, judge the earth! for Thou shalt inherit all
nations.'"

The Countess stood mute before this unparalleled outburst.  She could
not comprehend it.

"My child, I do not understand," she said, kindly enough.  "Has some
relative of thine been murdered?  How shocking!"

"Are not all my people kindred of mine?" exclaimed Beatrice,
passionately.

"Dost thou mean the massacre of the Jews in London?" said the Countess,
as the truth suddenly flashed upon her.  "Oh yes, I did hear of some
such dreadful affair.  But, my dear, remember, thou art now a De Malpas.
Thou shouldst try to forget thine unfortunate connection with that low
race.  They are not thy people any longer."

Beatrice looked up, with flashing eyes from which some stronger feeling
than sorrow had suddenly driven back the tears.

"`If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning!'
Lady, thou canst not fathom the heart of a Jew.  No Christian can.  We
are brethren for ever.  And you call my nationality unfortunate, and
low!  Know that I look upon that half of my blood as the King does upon
his crown,--yea, as the Lord dees upon His people!  `We are Thine; Thou
never barest rule over them; they were not called by Thy name.'  But you
do not understand, Lady."

"No,--it is very strange," replied the Countess, in a dubious tone.
"Jews do not seem to understand their position.  It is odd.  But dry
thine eyes, my dear child; thou wilt make thyself ill.  And really--"

The Countess was too kind to finish the sentence.  But Beatrice could
guess that she thought there was really nothing to weep over in the
massacre of a few scores of Jews.  She found little sympathy among the
younger members of the family party.  Margaret said she was sorry, but
it was evidently for the fact that her friend was in trouble, not for
the event over which she was sorrowing.  Eva openly expressed profound
scorn of both the Jews and the sorrow.

Marie wanted to know if some friend of Beatrice were among the slain:
because, if not, why should she care any thing about it?  Doucebelle
alone seemed capable of a little sympathy.

But before the evening was over, Beatrice found there was one Christian
who could enter into all her feelings.  She was slowly crossing the
ante-chamber in the twilight, when she found herself intercepted and
drawn into Bruno's arms.

"My darling!" he said, tenderly.  "I am sent to thee with heavy
tidings."

Poor Beatrice laid her tired head on her father's breast, with the
feeling that she had one friend left in the world.

"I know it, dear Father.  But it is such a comfort that you feel it with
me."

"There are not many who will, I can guess," answered Bruno.  "But, my
child, I am afraid thou dost not know all."

"Father!--what is it?" asked Beatrice, fearfully.

"One has fallen in that massacre, very dear to thee and me, my
daughter."

"Delecresse?"  She thought him the most likely to be in London of any of
the family.

"No.  Delecresse is safe, so far as I know."

"Is it Uncle Moss?--or Levi my cousin?"

"Beatrice, it is Abraham the son of Ursel, the father of us all."

The low cry of utter desolation which broke from the girl's lips was
pitiful to hear.

"`My father, my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen
thereof!'"

Bruno let her weep passionately, until the first burst of grief was
over.  Then he said, gently, "Be comforted, my Beatrice.  I believe that
he sleeps in Jesus, and that God shall bring him with Him."

"He was not baptised?" asked Beatrice, in some surprise that Bruno
should think so.

"He was ready for it.  He had spoken to a friend of mine--one Friar
Saher de Kilvingholme--on the subject.  And the Lord would not refuse to
receive him because his brow had not been touched by water, when He had
baptised him with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

Perhaps scarcely any priest then living, Bruno excepted, would have
ventured so far as to say that.

"Oh, this is a weary world!" sighed Beatrice, drearily.

"It is not the only one," replied her father.

"It seems as if we were born only to die!"

"Nay, my child.  We were born to live for ever.  Those have death who
choose it."

"A great many seem to choose it."

"A great many," said Bruno, sadly.

"Father," said Beatrice, after a short silence, "as a man grows older
and wiser, do you think that he comes to understand any better the
reason of the dark doings of Providence?  Can you see any light upon
them, which you did not of old?"

"No, my child, I think not," was Bruno's answer.  "If any thing, I
should say they grow darker.  But we learn to trust, Beatrice.  It is
not less dark when the child puts his hand confidingly in that of his
father; but his mind is the lighter for it.  We come to know our Father
better; we learn to trust and wait.  `What I do, thou knowest not now:
but thou shalt know hereafter.'  And He has told us that in that land
where we are to know even as we are known, we shall be satisfied.
Satisfied with His dealings, then: let us be satisfied with Him, here
and now."

"It is dark!" said Beatrice, with a sob.

"`The morning cometh,'" replied Bruno.  "And `in the morning is
gladness.'"

Beatrice stood still and silent for some minutes, only a slight sob now
and then showing the storm through which she had passed.  At last, in a
low, troubled voice, she said--

"There is no one to call me Belasez now!"

Bruno clasped her closer.

"My darling!" he said, "so long as the Lord spares us to each other,
thou wilt always be _belle assez_ for me!"

Note 1.  She was the young widow of William, Earl of Pembroke, the
eldest brother of the husband of Marjory of Scotland.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

AT LAST.

  "Joy for the freed one!  She might not stay
  When the crown had fallen from her life away:
  She might not linger, a weary thing,
  A dove with no home for its broken wing,
  Thrown on the harshness of alien skies,
  That know not its own land's melodies.
  From the long heart-withering early gone,
  She hath lived--she hath loved--her task is done!"

  _Felicia Hemans_.

"Now, Sir John de Averenches, what on earth dost _thou_ want?"

"Is there no room, Damsel?"

"Room!  There is room enough for thee, I dare say," replied Eva, rather
contemptuously.  She looked down on Sir John supremely for four reasons,
which in her own eyes at least were excellent ones.  First, he was
rather short; secondly, he was very silent; thirdly, he was not
particularly handsome; and lastly (and of most import), he had remained
proof against all Eva's attractions.

"I thank thee," was all he said now; and he walked into Margaret's
bower, where he took a seat on the extreme end of the settle, and never
said a word to any body whilst he stayed.

"The absurd creature!" exclaimed Eva, when he was gone.  "What an
absolute ass he is!  He has not an idea in his head."

"Oh, I beg thy pardon, Eva," interposed Marie, rather warmly.  "He's
plenty of ideas.  He'll talk if one talks to him.  Thou never dost."

"He is clever enough to please thee, very likely!" was the rather
snappish answer.

From that evening, Sir John de Averenches took to frequenting the bower
occasionally, much to the annoyance of Eva, until the happy thought
struck her that she might have captivated him at last.  Mentally binding
him to her chariot wheels, she made no further objection, but on the
contrary, became so amiable that the shrewd little Marie noticed the
alteration.

"Well, Eva is queer!" said that acute young lady.  "She goes into the
sulks if Sir William de Cantilupe so much as looks at any body; but she
does not care how many people she looks at!  I think she should be
jealous on both sides!"

Eva's amenities, however, seemed to have no more effect on Sir John than
her displeasure.  Night after night, there he sat, never speaking to any
one, and apparently not noticing one more than another.

"He's going out of his mind," suggested Marie.

"Not he!" said Eva.  "He's none to go out of!"

The mystery was left unsolved, except by Bruno, who fancied that he
guessed its meaning; but since the clue was one which he preferred not
to pursue, he discreetly left matters to shape themselves, or rather, to
be shaped by Providence, when the time should come.

That was a dreary winter altogether.  The King had openly insulted his
sister and Montfort, when they made their appearance at the ceremony of
the Queen's "up-rising;" [Churching] and they had left England,
pocketing the affront, but as concerned Montfort, by no means forgetting
it.

The Pope made further encroachments on the liberties of the Church of
England, by sending over a horde of Italians to fill vacant benefices.
The nobles blazed out into open wrath "that the Pope, through avarice,
should deprive them of their ancient right to the patronage of livings!"
They were headed, as usual, by the King's brother, Richard Earl of
Cornwall, who seems to have been not a true, living Christian (as there
is reason to believe his son was), but simply a political opponent of
the aggressions of Rome.  The citizens of London were about equally
disgusted with the King, who at this time received a visit from the
Queen's uncle, Tomaso of Savoy, and in his delight, His Majesty
commanded his loyal and grumbling subjects to remove all dirt from the
streets, and to meet the Count in gala clothing, and with horses
handsomely accoutred.

The hint thrown out by Levina had not been lost on the Countess.  She
thought a complete change might do good to the fading flower which was
only too patently withering on its stem: and at her instance the whole
household removed to Westminster at the beginning of this winter.  They
had hardly settled down in their new abode when a fresh storm broke on
the now aged head of Earl Hubert.

Once more, all the old, worn-out charges were trumped up, including even
that by which the Princess Margaret's name had been so cruelly aspersed.
A flash of the early fire of the old man blazed forth when the
accusation was made.

"I was never a traitor to you, nor to your father!" said Hubert de
Burgh, facing his ungrateful King and pupil of long ago: "If I had been,
under God, you would never have been here!"

It was true, and Henry knew it, best of all men.

The King, in the fulness of his compassionate grace, was pleased to let
the Earl off very lightly.  The sentence passed was, that he should only
resign the four most valuable castles that he had.  This, of course, was
not because Hubert was guilty, but because His Majesty was covetous.
Chateau Blanc, Grosmond, Skenefrith, and Hatfield, were given up to the
Crown.  Hubert bore it, we are told, very quietly and patiently.  His
own time could not be long now, for he was at least seventy; and the
Benjamin of his love was dying of a broken heart.

King Henry himself was not without sorrow, for about All Saints' Day,
Guglielmo of Savoy, the beloved uncle who had moulded him like wax, died
rather suddenly at Viterbo.  So grieved was the King, that he tore his
royal mantle from his shoulders, and flung it into the fire.  With that
sudden and passionate reaction to the other side, often seen in weak
natures, he now threw himself into the arms of the Predicants and
Minorites--until he set up a new favourite, who was not long in
appearing.

Before the winter was over, a second sorrow fell upon Richard de Clare,
in the death of his mother, Isabel, wife of the King's brother.
Cornwall grieved bitterly both for the loss of his wife and for the
miserable state into which England was sinking; and declaring that he
loved his country so much, that he could not bear to stay and see it go
to ruin, he prepared to head a fresh crusade.  Perhaps it did not occur
to him that love and patriotism would have been shown better by staying
at home and trying to keep his country from going to ruin.  That was
reserved for another Richard--the young Earl of Gloucester.

Another comet, and a violent hurricane, in the spring, made the augurs
shake their heads and prophesy worse calamities than ever.  There was a
fresh one on the way, in the shape of a Papal exaction of one-fifth of
the property of foreign beneficed clerks in England, in order to support
the war then waged by the Pope on the Emperor of Germany.  The royal
Council was stirred, and told its listless master that he "ought not to
suffer England to become a spoil and a desolation to immigrants, like a
vineyard without a wall, exposed to wild beasts."  His Majesty, like a
true son of holy Church, replied that he "neither wished nor dared to
oppose the Pope in any thing."  As if to make confusion worse
confounded, the Archbishop of Canterbury (subsequently known as Saint
Edmund of Pontigny) aspired to become a second Becket, and appealed to
the Pope to do away with state patronage, which he of course considered
ought to be vested in the Primate.  King Henry, supine as he was, was
roused at last, and sent a message to Rome to the effect that the appeal
of the Archbishop was contrary to his royal dignity.  The Pope declined
to entertain the appeal: and the King, we are told (by a monk) "became
more tyrannical than ever," and appointed Bonifacio of Savoy to the See
of Winchester.  The defeated Archbishop submitted to the Pope's demand
of a fifth of his income: but when the Pope, emboldened by success,
came, to an agreement with the Italian priests occupying English
benefices, that on condition of their helping him against the Emperor,
all benefices in his gift should be bestowed upon Italians, the
Archbishop could bear no longer, and he left England, never to return.
He died at Pontigny, his birthplace, on the sixteenth of November
following; and not long afterwards, King Henry reverently knelt to
worship at the tomb of the saint [Note 1] who had been a thorn in his
side as long as he lived.

Then the English Abbots, cruelly mulcted by the Pope, appealed to their
natural Sovereign, to be met by a scowl, and to hear the Legate told
that he might choose the best of the royal castles wherein to imprison
them.  Twenty-four Roman priests came over to fill English benefices:
and at last, when the Legate left England (for which "no one was sorry
but the King"), it was calculated that with the exception of church
plate, he carried out of England more wealth than he left in it.

But in the halls of Earl Hubert at Westminster, all interest in outside
calamities was lost in the inside.  As that spring drew on towards
summer, the blindest eyes could no longer refuse to see that the white
lily had faded at last, and the star was going out.

The trial of patience had been long for Margaret but it was over now.

Master Aristoteles could not understand it.  The maiden had no disease
that he could discover: and to think that the blessed hair of Saint
Dominic should have failed to restore her!  It was most unaccountable.

There was no word of complaint from the dying girl.  She no longer
thought it strange that God should have made her young life short and
bitter.  The lesson was learned, at last.

So gradually her life went out, that no one expected the end just when
it came.  Weaker and weaker she grew from day to day; more unable to sit
up, to work, to talk: but the transition from life to death was so quiet
that it was difficult for those around to realise how near it was.

Margaret had risen and dressed every day, but had lain outside her bed
when dressed, for the greater part of April.  It was May Day now, and in
all the streets were May-poles and May dancers, singing and sunshine.

Eva went out early, with a staff of attendants, to join in the
festivities.

"Why, what good can there be in my staying at home?" she said, answering
Doucebelle's face.  "Margaret will not be any better because I am here.
And then, when I come in at night, I can tell her all about it.  And it
is no use talking, Doucebelle!  I really cannot bear this sort of thing!
I get so melancholy, you have no idea!  I don't know what would become
of me if I had not some diversion."

Beatrice and Doucebelle stayed with Margaret: Doucebelle from a sort of
inward sensation, she hardly knew what or why; Beatrice from a remark
made by Bruno the night before.

"It will not be long, now, at least," he had said.

The day wore slowly on, but it seemed just like twenty days which had
preceded it.  Bruno paid his daily visit towards evening.

"Are the streets very full of holiday-makers?" asked Margaret.

"Very full, my daughter.  There is a great crowd round the May-pole."

"I hope Eva will enjoy herself."

"I have no doubt she will."

"It seems so far off, now," said Margaret, dreamily.  "As if I were
where I could hardly see it--somewhere above this world, and all the
things that are in the world.  Father, have you any idea what there will
be in Heaven?"

"There will be Christ," answered Bruno.  "And what may be implied in
`His glory, which God hath given Him,'--our finite minds are scarcely
capable of guessing.  Only, His will is that His people shall behold it
and share it.  It must be something that He thinks worth seeing--He, who
has beheld the glory of God before the worlds were."

"Father," said Margaret, with deep feeling, "it seems too much that _we_
should see it."

"True.  But not too much that He should bestow it.  He gives,--as He
forgives--like a king."

Like what king?--was the thought in Doucebelle's mind.  Not like the one
of whom she knew any thing--who was responsible before God for that
death which was coming on so quietly, yet so surely.