"Ah, you did, I think," she said, quietly. "He died a young man, in the first great visitation of the Black Death, over twenty years ago: and my mother survived him twenty years. She married again, and died three years since." Margaret asked what I wanted to hear. I was very glad, for I felt as if I could ask nothing. It was strange how Margaret seemed to know just what I wished. "Who was your mother, my Lady?" The Lady Joan coloured, and did not answer for a moment. Then she said,--"I fear you will not like to know it: yet it was not her fault, nor his. Queen Isabel arranged it all: and she hath answered for her own sins at the Judgment Bar. My mother was Agnes de Mortimer, daughter of the Earl of March." "Why not?" said Margaret. "Ah, then you know not. I scarce expected a Despenser to hear his name with patience. But I suppose you were so young--Sisters, he was the great enemy of your father." So they wedded my lost love to the daughter of my enemy! Almost before the indignation rose up within me, there came to counteract it a vision of the cross of Calvary, and of Him who said, "Father, forgive them!" The momentary feeling of anger died away. Another feeling took its place: the thought that the after-bond was dissolved now, and death had made him mine again. "Mother Annora," said the Lady Joan's soft voice, "will you reject me, and look coldly on me, if I ask whether you can love me a little? He used to love to talk to me of you, whom he remembered tenderly, as he might have remembered a little sister that God had taken. He often wondered where you were, and whether you were happy. And when I was a little child, I always wanted to hear of that other child--you lived, eternal, a little child, for me. Many a time I have fancied that I would make retreat here, and try to find you out, if you were still alive. Do you think it sinful to love any thing?--some nuns do. But if not, I should like you to love the favourite child of your lost love." "Methinks," said Margaret, quietly, "it is true in earthly as in heavenly things, and to carnal no less than spiritual persons, `_Major horum est caritas_.'" [First Corinthians 13, verse 13.] I hardly know what I said. But I think Joan was satisfied. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. Her thoughts wandered to her married sister, Isabel Lady Hastings and Monthermer, who lived at Marlborough Castle. Note 2. The last native Princess of Wales, being the only (certainly proved) child of the last Prince Llywelyn, and Alianora de Montfort. She was thrust into the convent at Sempringham with her cousin Gladys. PART THREE, CHAPTER 4. MORTIFYING THE WILL. "L'orgueil n'est jamais mieux deguise, et plus capable de tromper, que lorsqu'il se cache sous la figure de l'humilite." Rochefoucauld.