There I abide. I'll say it, if He do. I would love any
man that wrought that: and if He will work it, I will love Him--and not
otherwise. Hold! I desire no more talk."

The Countess turned her face to the wall, and Perrote retired, with
tears in her eyes.

"Lord, Thou art wise!" she said in her heart; "wiser than I, than she,
than all men. But never yet have I known her to depart from such a word
as that. Oh, if it be possible,--if it be possible!--Thou who camest
down from Heaven to earth, come down once more to the weak and stubborn
soul of this dying woman, and grant her that which she requests, if so
she may be won to love thee! Father, the time is very short, and her
soul is very dark. O fair Father, Jesu Christ, lose not this soul for
which Thou hast died!"

Perrote's next move was to await Lady Basset's departure from her
mother's chamber, and to ask her to bestow a few minutes' private talk
on her old nurse. The Princess complied readily, and came into the
opposite chamber where Amphillis sat sewing.

"Damoiselle Jeanne," said Perrote, using the royal title of Lady
Basset's unmarried days; "may I pray you tell me if you have of late
seen the Lord Duke your brother?"

"Ay, within a year," said Lady Basset, listlessly.

"Would it please you to say if King Edward letteth his coming?"

"I think not so."

"Would he come, if he were asked yet again, and knew that a few weeks--
maybe days--would end his mother's life?"

"I doubt it, Perrotine."

"Wherefore? He can love well where he list."

"Ay, where he list. But I misdoubt if ever he loved her--at the least,
sithence she let him from wedding the Damoiselle de Ponteallen."

"Then he loved the Damoiselle very dearly?"

"For a month--ay."

"But wherefore, when the matter was by--"

Lady Basset answered with a bitter little laugh, which reminded Perrote
of her mother's.

"Because he loved Jean de Montfort, and she thwarted _him_, not the
Damoiselle. He loved Alix de Ponteallen passionately, and passion dies;
'tis its nature. It is not passionately, but undyingly, that he loves
himself. Men do; 'tis their nature."

Perrote shrewdly guessed that the remark had especial reference to one
man, and that not the Duke of Bretagne.

"Ah, that is the nature of all sinners," she said, "and therefore of all
men and women also. Dame, will you hearken to your old nurse, and grant
her one boon?"

"That will I, Perrotine, if it be in my power. I