aid her in the quiet
cloisters of Westminster Abbey, and the King who had been an accessory
to her end followed her bier. Hers was not the only life that his act
had shortened. Earl Hubert had virtually done with earth, when he saw
lowered into the cold ground the coffin of his Benjamin. He survived
her just two years, and laid down his weary burden of life on the fourth
of May, 1243.

When Margaret was gone, there was no further tie to Bury Castle for
Bruno and his daughter. Bishop Grosteste was again applied to, and
responded as kindly as before, though circumstances did not allow him to
do it equally to his satisfaction. The rich living originally offered
to Bruno had of course been filled up, and there was nothing at that
moment in the episcopal gift but some very small ones. The best of
these he gave; and about two months after the death of Margaret, Bruno
and Beatrice took leave of the Countess, and removed to their new home.
It was a quiet little hamlet in the south of Lincolnshire, with a
population of barely three hundred souls; and Beatrice's time was filled
up by different duties from those which had occupied her at Bury Castle.
The summer glided away in a peaceful round of most unexciting events.
There had been so much excitement hitherto in their respective lives,
that the priest and his daughter were only too thankful for a calm
stretch of life, all to themselves.

One evening towards the close of summer, as Bruno came home to his
little parsonage, where the dog-roses looked in at the windows, and the
honeysuckles climbed round the porch, a sight met him which assured him
that his period of peace and content was ended. On the stone bench in
the porch, alone, intently examining a honeysuckle, sat Sir John de
Averenches.

Bruno de Malpas was much too shrewd to suppose that his society was the
magnet which had attracted the silent youth some fifty miles across the
country. He sighed, but resigning himself to the inevitable, lifted his
biretta as he came up to the door. Sir John rose and greeted him with
evident cordiality, but he did not appear to have any thing particular
to say beyond two self-evident statements--that it was a fine evening,
and the honeysuckles were pretty.

"Is Beatrice within?" said the priest, feeling pretty sure that he knew.

Sir John demurely thought not. It was another half-hour before Beatrice
made her appearance; and Bruno noticed that the unexpected presence of a
t