il
period of his life, and to wonder over the man that he had been through
this short while. Embittered and suspicious she had found him, noted
for the carping tongue he lacked both power and inclination to bridle;
and she had, against his nature, made Maudelain see that every person
is at bottom lovable, and all vices but the stains of a traveller
midway in a dusty journey; and had led the priest no longer to do good
for his soul's health, but simply for his fellow's benefit.

And in place of that monstrous passion which had at first view of her
possessed the priest, now, like a sheltered taper, glowed an adoration
which yearned, in mockery of common-sense, to suffer somehow for this
beautiful and gracious comrade; though very often a sudden pity for her
loneliness and the knowledge that she dared trust no one save himself
would throttle him like two assassins and move the hot-blooded young
man to an exquisite agony of self-contempt and exultation.

Now Maudelain made excellent songs, it was a matter of common report.
Yet but once in their close friendship had the Queen commanded him to
make a song for her. This had been at Dover, about vespers, in the
starved and tiny garden overlooking the English Channel, upon which her
apartments faced; and the priest had fingered his lute for an
appreciable while before he sang, a thought more harshly than was his
custom.

Sang Maudelain;

"_Ave Maria! now cry we so
That see night wake and daylight go._

"_Mother and Maid, in nothing incomplete,
This night that gathers is more light and fleet
Than twilight trod alway with stumbling feet,
Agentes uno animo._

"_Ever we touch the prize we dare not take!
Ever we know that thirst we dare not slake!
And ever to a dreamed-of goal we make--
Est caeli in palatio!_

"_Yet long the road, and very frail are we
That may not lightly curb mortality,
Nor lightly tread together silently,
Et carmen unum facio:_

"_Mater, ora filium,
Ut post hoc exilium
Nobis donet gaudium
Beatorum omnium!_"

Dame Anne had risen. She said nothing. She stayed in this posture for
a lengthy while, reeling, one hand yet clasping either breast. More
lately she laughed, and began to speak of Long Simon's recent fever.
Was there no method of establishing him in another cottage? No, the
priest said, the villiens, like the cattle, were by ordinary deeded
with the land.