Ugo had said at Christmas-tide that he had never doubted the triumph of the right. Questioned at Candlemas, though very gently, by one of the hyperbold, he had answered gravely that Father Eustace, in confession, had acknowledged that he was not certain as to whether Our Blessed Lady of Roche-de-Frêne had indeed spoken to him. Pride had been in his heart, and the demon himself might have taken dazzling form and spoken! Father Eustace for penance had been sent, barefoot and dumb, to a remote monastery where in his cell he might gain true vision. Easter-tide, Bishop Ugo flowered praise of Roche-de-Frêne’s princess. That great lady took it with her enigmatical smile. In the castle-garden Alazais watched the crocus bloom, the hyacinth and the daffodil. Gilles de Valence sang to her, and sometimes Raimon de Saint-Rémy, or, when no troubadour was there, Elias of Montaudon was brought upon the greensward to sing other men’s verses. Knights came and went. Her ladies made a bright half-ring about her, and she and they and the knights and poets discussed the world under the star of Love. Sometimes Audiart came into the garden, but not often. There was much that yet was to be done.... She was oftener in the town than in the castle, often away from both, riding far and near in her domain, to other towns and villages and towers. But as the spring increased and the green leaves came upon the trees, order was regained. The sap of life returned to the veins that had been drained, time and place knew again hope and power. The princess looked upon a birthland that had lifted from a pit, and now was sandalled and ready for further journeying. She came oftener now to the garden, and at night, from her chamber in the White Tower, she watched the stars. In the town whose roofs lay below her, the craftsmen were back at their crafts. Again they were dyeing scarlet and weaving fine webs and working in leather and wax and metal and stone. Merchant and trader renewed their life. Roche-de-Frêne once more hummed as a hive that produced, not destroyed. It produced values dense and small, but so it learned of values beyond these. Presently the old talk of liberty would spring up, not feared by this princess. When, in late April, she held high court and a great council, Thibaut Canteleu—Master Mayor, clear-eyed and merry—sat, with two of the town’s magistrates, in the council chamber.