inflicting a heavy blow upon you; but it was not I who
struck, but God, to whom I think you give no allegiance." And Robert
said, "Nay, Sir Paul, trouble not yourself; you have done as a
faithful servant of the Duke should do to a faithless servant; I bear
you no malice; as you say, it is not you who strike."

Then the old man said, "Believe me, Lord Robert, that the day will
come, and I think it is not far distant, when you will be grateful to
the stroke which, at the cost of grievous pain to yourself, has
revealed your soul to yourself. All men know the worst that can be
known of you; the cup is emptied to the dregs; it is for you to fill
it." Then he put out his hand, and Robert grasped it, and went out
into the world alone. That night he sent a courier to his castle to
say that he would return no more, and that all things were the Duke's;
and he sent back to the Duke, by a private messenger, the crown and
the dagger; and the Duke mourned over the loss of his trusty servant,
but could not forgive him nor hear him spoken of.

Robert only kept for himself the sum of gold with which he had come
to the Duke's court; and he travelled into France, for he knew that he
would find fighting there, and took service in the army of Burgundy;
he was surprised within himself to find how little he cared for the
loss of his greatness; indeed he felt that a certain secret heaviness
and blackness of spirit had left him, and that he was almost
light-hearted; but in one of the first battles he fought in he was
stricken from his horse, and trampled under foot. And they took him
for tendance to a monastery near the field; and in a few weeks, when
he came slowly back to life, he knew that he could fight no more.

Then indeed he fell into a great despair and darkness of spirit. It
seemed as though some cruel and secret enemy had struck him blow after
blow, and not content with visiting him with shame, had rent from him
all that made him even wish to live. But in the monastery lived a wise
old monk, with whom he had much talk, and in his weakness told him all
his life and his fall. And one day the two sate together in the
cloister, on a day in spring, while a bird sang very blithely in a
bush that was all pricked with green points and shoots. And the old
monk said, "This is a strange tale, Lord Robert, that you have told
me; and the wonder grows as I think of it; but it seems to me that God
has led you in a wonderful manner; He made you str