--you would know
yourself to be as black a sinner as he. Where, then, is your
superiority? You have as much need to be forgiven."

"But I have _not_!" cried Philippa, in no dulcet tones, her annoyance
getting the better of her civility. "I never was a murderer! I never
turned coldly away from one that loved me--for none ever did love me. I
never crushed a loving, faithful heart down into the dust. I never
brought a child up like a stranger. I never--stay, I will go no further
into the catalogue. But I know I am not such a sinner as he--nay, I am
not to be compared to him."

"And have you," asked the Grey Lady, very gently, "turned no cold ear to
the loving voice of Christ? Have you not kept far away from the
heavenly Father? Have you not grieved the Holy Spirit of God? May it
not be said to you, as our Lord said to the Jews of old time,--`Ye will
not come to Me, that ye might have life'?"

It was only what Guy of Ashridge had said before. But this time there
seemed to be a power with the words which had not gone with his.
Philippa was silent. She had no answer to make.

"You are right," she said after a long pause. "I have done all this;
but I never saw it before. Mother, the next time you are at the holy
mass, will you pray for me?"

"Why wait till then?" was the rejoinder. "Let us tell Him so now."

And, surprised as she was at the proposal, Philippa knelt down.

"Thank you, and the holy saints bless you," she said, as she rose. "Now
I must go; and I hear Lena's voice without. But ere I depart, may I ask
you one thing?"

"Anything."

"What could I possibly have said that pained you? For that something
did pain you I am sure. I am sorry for it, whatever it may have been."

The soft voice resumed its troubled tone.

"It was only," said the Grey Lady, "that you uttered a name which has
not been named in mine hearing for twenty-seven years: you told me
where, and doing what, was one of whom and of whose doings I had thought
never to hear any more. One, of whom I try never to think, save when I
am praying for him, or in the night when I am alone with God, and can
ask Him to pardon me if I sin."

"But whom did I name?" said Philippa, in an astonished tone. "Have I
spoken of any but of my husband? Do you know him?"

"I have never heard of him before to-day, nor of you."

"I think I did mention the Duke of Lancaster."

A shake of the head negatived this suggestion.

"Well, I named no