d have had a vocation, she said, which would have been far
better for her, with her lameness, than to go limping into chapel to be
wed. She wondered nobody saw the impropriety of it. However, as she
had promised De Gernet, she supposed it must be so. She did not know
what she herself could have been thinking about to make such a foolish
promise. She was not usually so silly as that. However, if it must be,
it had better be got over.

So got over it was, on an early morning in August, De Gernet receiving
knighthood from the Earl at the close of the ceremony.

Mistress Underdone had petitioned that her lame and only child might not
be separated from her, and the Countess--according to her own authority,
in a moment of foolishness--had granted the petition. So Heliet was
drafted among the Ladies of the Bedchamber, but only as an honorary
distinction.

The manner of the Countess continued to strike every one as unusual.
Long fits of musing with hands lying idle were becoming common with her,
and when she rose from them she would generally shut herself up in her
oratory for the remainder of the day. Clarice thought, and Heliet
agreed with her, that something was going to happen. Once, too, as
Clarice was carrying Rose along the terrace, she was met by the Earl,
who stopped and noticed the child, as in his intense and unsatisfied
love for little children he always did. Clarice thought he looked even
unwontedly sorrowful.

From the child, Earl Edmund looked up into the pleased eyes of the young
mother.

"Dame Clarice," he asked, gently, "are you happier than you were?"

Her eyes grew suddenly grave.

"Thus far," she said, touching the child. "Otherwise--I try to be
content with God's will, fair Lord. It is hard to bear heart-hunger."

"Ah!" The Earl's tone was significant. "Yes, it is hard to bear in any
form," he said, after a pause. "May God send you never to know, Dame,
that there is a more terrible form than that wherein you bear it."

And he left her almost abruptly.

The winter of 1292 dragged slowly along. Filomena declared that her
body was as starved as her mind, and she should be frozen to death if
she stayed any longer. The next day, to everybody's astonishment, the
Countess issued orders to pack up for travelling. Sir Vivian and
Clarice were to go with her--where, she did not say. So were Olympias,
Felicia, and Ada. Mistress Underdone, Sir Reginald, Sir Ademar and
Heliet, Filomena and