Le Despenser obeyed; but he came down looking so like a chimney-sweep that Constance, whose versatile moods changed with the rapidity of lightning, flung herself on the bed in fits of laughter. The interrupted preparations were quickly resumed and completed; and when all was ready, and the boatman waiting at the Castle pier, Le Despenser went into the hall to bid farewell to his mother. She was sitting on the settle with an anxious, care-worn look. Maude stood in the window; and at the lower end three or four servants were hurrying about, rather restlessly than necessarily. The old lady rose when her son entered, and her often-repressed love flowed out in unwonted fervour, as she clasped him in her arms, knowing that it might be for the last time. "Our Lord be thine aid, my lad, my lad! Be true to thy King; but whatso shall befall thee, be truest to thy God!" "God helping me, so will I!" replied he solemnly. "And--Tom, dearest lad!--is there aught I can do to pleasure thee?" The tears sprang to his eyes at such words from her. "Mother dear, have a care of my Lady!" "I will, so!" answered the Dowager; but she added, with a pang of jealous love which she would have rebuked sorely in another--"I would she held thee more in regard." "She may, one day," he said, mournfully, as if quietly accepting the incontrovertible fact. "I told you once, and I yet trust, that the day may dawn wherein my Lady's heart shall come home to God and me." Maude remembered those words five years later. "And now, Mother, farewell! I trust to be other-whither ere Wednesday set in." His mother kissed him, and blessed him, and let him go. Le Despenser took his usual leave of the household, with a kind word, as was his wont, even to the meanest drudge; and then he went back to his lady's bower for that last, and to him saddest farewell of all. His grave, tender manner touched Constance's impressible heart. She took her leave of him more affectionately than usual. "Farewell, my Lady!" he faltered, holding her to his breast. "We meet again--where God will, and when." "And that will be in France, ere long," said Constance, sanguinely. "You will send me speedy word of your landing, my Lord?" "You will learn it, my Lady." Why did he speak so vaguely? Had he some dim presentiment that his "other-whither" might be Jerusalem the Golden? No such hidden meaning occurred to Constance. She was almost startled by the sudden flood of pent-up, passionate feeling, which swept all the usual conventionalities out of his way, and made him whisper in accents of inexpressible love-- "My darling! my darling! God keep and bless thee! Farewell once more-- Custance!" They had never come so near to each other's hearts as in that moment of parting. And the moment after, he was gone.