What did I know about Mother Guendolen? Some faint, vague, misty memories seemed to awake within me--an odd, incongruous mixture like a dream--dark eyes like Margaret's, which told a tale, but this seemed a tale of terror; and an enamelled cross, which had somewhat to do with a battle and a queen. "I scarcely know, Mother," said I. "Somewhat do I recall, yet what it is I hardly know. Were her eyes dark, with an affrighted look in them?" "They were dark," said Mother Alianora, "but the very peace of God was in them. Ah, thou art mixing up two persons--herself and her cousin, Mother Gladys. They were near of an age, and Mother Guendolen only outlived Mother Gladys by one year: but they were full diverse manner of women. Thou shouldst remember her, Annora. Thou wert a maiden of fifteen when she died." All at once she seemed to flash up before me. "I do remember her, Mother, if it please you. She was tall, and had very black hair, and dark flashing eyes, and she moved like a queen." "I think of her," saith Mother Alianora, "rather as she was in her last days, when those flashing eyes flashed no longer, and the queen was lost in the saint." "If it please you, Mother," I said, "had she not an enamelled cross that she wore? I recollect something about it." Mother Alianora smiled, somewhat amusedly. "She had; and perchance thy memory runneth back to a battle over that cross betwixt her and Sister Sayena, who laid plaint afore my Lady Prioress that Mother Guendolen kept to herself an article of private property, which should have gone into the treasury. It had been her mother's, a marriage-gift from the Queen that then was. Well I remember Mother Guendolen's words--`I sware to part from this cross alone with life, and the Master granted me to keep it when I entered the Order.' Then the fire died out of her eyes, and her voice fell low, and she added--`ah, my sister! dost thou envy me Christ's cross?' Ay, she had carried more of that cross than most. She came here about the age thou didst, Annora--a little child of six years." "Who was she in the world, Mother?" quoth Sister Nora. I was surprised to see Mother Alianora glance round the room, as if to see who was there, afore she answered. Nor did she answer for a moment. "She was Sister Guendolen of Sempringham: let that satisfy thee. Maybe, in the world above, she is that which she should have been in this world, and was not." And I could not but wonder if Mother Guendolen's life had held a _might have been_ like mine.