It was Constance who spoke, standing in the hall at Cardiff, wrapped in the arms of the Dowager Lady Le Despenser. And in every sense, from the lightest to the deepest, the words were true. The wanderer had come home. Home to the Castle of Cardiff, which she was never to leave any more; home to the warm motherly arms of Elizabeth Le Despenser, who cast all her worn-out theories to the winds, and took her dead son's hapless darling to her heart of hearts; home to the great heart of God. And the ear of the elder woman was open to a sound unheard by the younger. The voice of that dead son echoed in her heart, repeating his dying charge to her--"Have a care of my Lady!" "My poor stricken dove!" sobbed the Lady Elizabeth. "Child, men's cruel handling hath robbed thee of much, yet it hath left thee God and thy mother!" Constance looked up, with tears gleaming in her sapphire eyes, now so much calmer and sadder than of old. "Ay," she said, the remembrance thrilling through her of the heavy price at which she had bought back her children; "and I have paid nought for God and thee." "Nay, daughter dear, Christ paid that wyte [forfeit] for thee. We may trust Him to have a care of the quittance," [receipt]. The children now claimed their share of notice. Richard kissed the old lady in an energetic devouring style, and proclaimed himself "so glad, Grammer, so glad!" Isabel offered her cheek in her cold unchildlike way. The baby Alianora at once accepted the new element as a perfectly satisfactory grandmamma, and submitted to be dandled and talked nonsense to with pleased equanimity. "O Bertram!" said Maude that night, "surely our Lady's troubles and travails be now over!" "It is well, wife, that God loveth her better than thou," was the answer. "He will not leave his jewel but half polished, because the sound of the cutting grieveth thine ears." "But how could she bear aught more?" "Dear heart! how know we what any man can bear--aye, even our own selves? Only God knoweth; and we trust Him. The heavenly Goldsmith breaketh none of His gems in the cutting." The doors of the prison in Windsor Castle were opened that spring to release two of the state prisoners. The dangerous prisoner, Edmund Earl of March, remained in durance; and his bright little brother Roger had been set free already, by a higher decree than any of Henry of Bolingbroke. The child died in his dungeon, aged probably about ten years. Now Anne and Alianora were summoned to Court, and placed under the care of the Queen. They were described by the King as "deprived of all their relatives and friends." They were not quite that; but in so far as they were, he was mainly responsible for having made them so.