"Sir Ademar, this is dread!" exclaimed the old lady in trembling accents. "What can my Lord's Grace have against you? This--this toucheth right nearly the Lady, our daughter--Christ aid her of His mercy!" "Maybe, Madam, it were so intended," said Ademar shrewdly. "For me, truly I wis little what my Lord hath against me--saving that I see not in all matters by his most reverend eyes. I know better what the Lord hath against me--yet what need I note it, seeing it is cancelled in the blood of His Son?--But for our Lady--ah me!" "Sir Ademar!"--and the dark sunken eyes of the Dowager looked very keenly into his--"arede me your thought--is my Lord of Kent he that should repair this wrong, or no?" Ademar's voice was silent; but his eyes said,--"No!" "God comfort her!" murmured the old lady, turning away. "For, ill as she should brook the loss of him, yet methinks, if I know her well, she might bear even that lighter than the witting that her name was made a name of scorn for ever." "Lady," said Ademar, quietly, "even God can only comfort them that lack comforting." She looked at him in silence. Ademar pointed out of the window to two little children who were dancing merrily on the shore, and laughing till they could scarcely dance. "How would you comfort them, Madam?" "They need it not," she murmured, absently. "In verity," said Ademar; "neither wasteth our Lord His comfort on them that dance, nor His pitifulness on them that be at ease. And I have seen ere now, Madam, that while He holdeth wide the door of His fold for all His sheep to enter in, yet there be some that will not come in till they be driven. Yea, and some lack a sharp rap of the shepherd's rod ere they will quit the wayside herbage." "And you think she feedeth thereby?" "I think that an' she be of the sheep, she must be fetched within; and maybe not one nor two strokes shall be spent in so doing." "Amen, even if so! But this rap hath fallen on the tenderest side." "The Shepherd knoweth the tender side, Madam; and lo' you, that so doing, He witteth not only where to smite with the rod, but where to lay the plaister." "And you, Sir Ademar--lack you no plaister?" "Madam, I have but received a gift. `For it is _ghouun_ [given] to you for Christ, that not oonli ghe [ye] bileuen in him, but also that ghe suffren for him.'" "Can you so take it, it is well." And the old lady turned aside with a sigh. "Ay," said the Lollard priest, "it was well with the Shunammite gentlewoman. And after all, it is but a little while ere our Lord is coming. 'Tis light gear to watch for the full day, when you see the sun gilding the crests of the mountains." "Yet when you see _not_ the sun--?" "Then, Lady, you long the more for his coming." ------------------------------------------------------------------------