Eleanor had come alone to the Sepulchre, and stood gazing at the three, not willing to come nearer. As she looked, her sins rose in her eyes and passed before her, many and great, and where her good deeds were hidden in her soul there was darkness, and she despaired of forgiveness, for she knew her own pride, that it could never be broken in her. She looked on that most faithful woman, and on that maiden knight whom she so dearly loved, sinning daily in her heart for him, and yet for his sake fighting her loving thoughts; and she would not have dared to go forward and kneel beside the pure in heart, in the holy light. All alone she drew back, and when she was so far that they could not have seen her, had they looked, she knelt down by a pillar, and drew her dark veil over her face, folding her hands in the hope of forgiveness and peace, and in great loneliness. Some comfort she found in this, that for the great love of her life, the like of which she had not known nor was to know again, though she had wished evil and dreamed of sweetest sins, she had done a little good at the last, and that the man who knelt there praying had grown stronger and greater and of higher honour by her means. Yet the comfort was not of much worth in her loneliness, since she had given him to another, and none could take his place. Then she said prayers she knew, but they had no meaning, and she gazed from beneath her veil at the place where the Lord had lain; but she felt nothing, and her heart was as stone, believing what she saw, but finding no light of faith for her in the divine beyond. At last she rose softly, as she had knelt, and leaning against the pillar, she looked long at the man she loved, and at the shield with the cross of Aquitaine, and, in it, at the spot she had once so fervently kissed. Her hand went to her heart, where it hurt her, and with the hurt came the great pure longing that, come what might to herself, all might be well with him; and her lips moved silently, while her eyes would have given him the world and its glory. "God, let me perish, but keep him what he is!" Shall any one say that such true prayers are not heard, because they are spoken by lips that have sinned? If not, God is not good, nor did Christ die to save men. The daughter of princes, the wife of two kings, as she was to be, and the mother of two kings, and of many more in line after them, she drew down her veil that none might see her face under the dim lights, and she went out thence, very lonely and sad, into the streets of Jerusalem.