“Nay. Begone, Alixe! Bring nothing to me. Why should I eat? Why should I eat, when after me there will be none of mine to eat in Crépuscule?” And it was with a kind of groan that madame moved slowly across to the bedside. When Alixe left the room she was still standing there, gazing down upon Lenore, who, if awake, could hardly have borne the look with which madame regarded her. An hour later, Courtoise was on his way to St. Nazaire; but he did not return with Monseigneur till evensong of the next day. Arrived at the Castle, the Bishop was given chance for food and rest after his ride, before he was summoned to Lenore’s room, where madame received him. From Courtoise, on their way, St. Nazaire had learned of the disappointment of the Castle; so that he was prepared for what he found. He read Eleanore’s mind from her face, and was not surprised at it, but from his own manner no one could have told that he felt anything but the utmost delight with the whole affair. He was full of congratulations and felicitations of every kind; he was witty, he was gay, he was more talkative than any one had ever seen him before; and he took the baby and handled it, cried to it, cooed to it, with the air of an experienced old beldame. Lenore, still radiant with her happiness of motherhood, brightened yet more under the cheer of his presence; and in her unexpected joy the Bishop found some consolation for the cloud of misery that shrouded madame. Indeed, he watched Lenore with unaffected delight, seeing with amazement the miracle that had been worked in her, and knowing her now for the first time as what she had been before her marriage, when there was, in her nature, none of the melancholy, the morbidness, the pain of loneliness, that had for so long clouded her life. Lenore was not strong enough to endure even his cheerful presence very long; and when Laure presently stole in, he seized the opportunity that he had been waiting for, and, on some light excuse, drew madame with him out of the room. The moment that they were alone together, his gay manner dropped from him like a cloak, and he looked upon the woman before him with piercing eyes. “Eleanore,” he said severely, “it were well an thou came with me for a little time before God. There is written on thy face the tale of that old-time inward rebellion that hath been so long asleep that I had hoped it dead.” Madame looked at him with something of defiance, displeasure very plainly to be read in her brilliant eyes. “My lord,” she said coldly, “thou’rt wearied with thy ride. It were well an thou soughtest rest.” “I have already rested. Where wouldst thou rather be,—in thine own room, or in the chapel?” “Charles!” madame spoke with angry impetuosity. “Think you I am to be treated as a child?” “There are times when all of us are children, Eleanore,—times when we need the Father-hand, the Father-guidance. I would not be harsh with thee were there another way; nevertheless, thou must do my bidding.”