, and see that he is instructed in all
that is needful for a future knight of our Order. I grieve to see that
you yourself are looking so ill."

"My course is well nigh run," she said. "I have, methinks, but a few
days to live. I am thankful that it has been permitted to me to carry
out my husband's wishes, and to place my boy in your hands. That done,
my work on earth is finished, and glad indeed am I that the time is at
hand when I can rejoin my dear husband."

"We have a building here where we can lodge ladies in distress or need,
Dame Tresham, and trust that you will take up your abode there."

"I shall indeed be thankful to do so," she replied. "I know no one in
London, and few would care to lodge a dying woman."

"We are Hospitallers," the grand prior said. "That was our sole mission
when we were first founded, and before we became a military order, and
it is still a part of our sworn duty to aid the distressed."

A few minutes later Dame Tresham was conducted to a comfortable
apartment, and was given into the charge of a female attendant. The next
day she had another interview with the grand prior, to whom she handed
over her jewels and remaining money. This she prayed him to devote to
the furnishing of the necessary outfit for Gervaise. She spent the rest
of the day in the church of the hospital, had a long talk with her son
in the evening, giving him her last charges as to his future life and
conduct, and that night, as if she had now fulfilled her last duty on
earth, she passed away, and was found by her attendant lying with a look
of joy and peacefulness on her dead face.

Gervaise's grief was for a time excessive. He was nearly twelve years
old, and had never until now been separated from her even for a day. She
had often spoken to him of her end being near, but until the blow came
he had never quite understood that it could be so. She had, on the night
before her death, told him that he must not grieve overmuch for her, for
that in any case they must have soon been sundered, and that it was
far better that he should think of her as at rest, and happy, than as
leading a lonely and sorrowful life.

The grand prior, however, wisely gave him but little time to dwell upon
his loss, but as soon as her funeral had taken place, handed him over
to the knights who had the charge of the novices on probation, and
instructed them in their military exercises, and of the chaplain who
taught them such learning as wa