The comfort Lady Judith tried to offer me sounded like cruel mockery. Even the soft pressure of her hand upon my head rasped my heart like a file. "Poor, dear child!" she said. "It is so hard to walk in the dark. If the Lord have marked thee for His own—as by the strivings of His Spirit with thee, I trust He has—how sorry He must be for thee, just now!" Sorry! Then why did He do it? When I am sorry for one I love, I do not give him bitter pain. I felt as if I should sink and die, if I did not get relief by pouring out my heart. I broke from Lady Judith,—she tried in vain to stop me—and I dashed into Lady Sybil’s chamber. Queen or villein, it was all one to me then. I was far past any considerations of that sort. If she had ordered me to be instantly beheaded, I should not have thought it signified a straw. I found her seated on the settle in the window. Oh, how white and worn and weary she looked! Dark rings were round her eyes, worn by pain and weeping and watching through that dreadful night. But I heeded not the signs of her woe. She deserved them. Guy’s wrong burned in my heart, and consumed every thing but itself. She rose hastily when she saw me, and a faint flush came to her white cheek. "Ah,—Helena!" She spoke in a hesitating tone, as if she scarcely knew what to say. She might well tremble before Guy’s sister! What a strange thing it is, that when our hearts are specially wrung with distress, our eyes seem opened to notice all sorts of insignificant minutiæ which we should never see at another time, or should never remember if we did see them. I perceived that one of the buttons of Lady Sybil’s robe had caught her chatelaine, and that a bow of ribbon on her super-tunic was coming loose. "May it please your Grace," I said—and I heard a hard metallic ring in my own voice,—"have I heard the truth just now from Lady Judith?" "What hast thou heard, Helena?" I did not spare her for the crushing clasp of her hands, for the slight quiver of the under lip. Let her suffer! Had she not wronged my Guy? "I have heard that your Grace means to give way before the vulgar clamour of your inferiors, and to repudiate your wedded lord at their dictation." No, I would not spare her so much as one adjective. She pressed her lips close, and a sort of shudder went over her from head to foot. But she said, in a calm, even voice, like a child repeating some formal lesson— "Thou hast heard the truth." If she would have warmed into anger, and have resented my words, I think I might have kept more within bounds. But she was as cold as ice, and it infuriated me. "And you call yourself a Christian and a Catholic?" cried I, raising my voice. "The Lord knoweth!" was her cool answer.