n from Custance. The mere mention of Ademar's name seemed to evoke
her overwhelming distress, as if it brought back the memory of all the
miserable events over which she had been brooding for three days past.
She rocked herself from side to side, as though her suffering were
almost unendurable.

"If he could come back! O Maude, Maude!--if only he could come back!"

"Sweet Lady, an' he were hither, methinks Father Ademar--"

"No, no--not Father Ademar. Oh, if I could rend the grave open!--if I
could tear asunder the blue veil of Heaven! I set no store by it all
then; but now! He would forgive me: he would not scorn me! He would
not count me too vile for his mercy. O my Lord, mine own dear Lord! you
would never have served me thus!"

And down rained the blessed tears, and relieved the dry, parched soil of
the agonised heart. She lay quieter after that torrent of pain and
passion. The terrible spell of dark silence was broken; and Maude knew
at last, that through this bitterest trial she had ever yet experienced,
the wandering heart was coming home--at least to Le Despenser.

Was it needful that she should pass through yet deeper waters, before
she would come home to God?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The leaves were carpeting the ground around Kenilworth, when Custance
granted a second interview to her cousin Isabel. There was more news
for her by that time. Edward had been once more pardoned, and was again
in his usual place at Court. How this inscrutable man procured his
pardon, and what sum he paid for it, in cash or service, is among the
mysteries of the medieval "back-stairs." He had to be forgiven for more
than Custance knew. Among his other political speculations, he had been
making love to the Queen; a fact which, though there can be little doubt
that it was a mere piece of policy on his part, was unlikely to be
acceptable to the King. But the one item which most closely concerned
his sister was indicated in plain terms by his pardon--that she need
look for no help at her brother's hands until she too "put herself in
the King's mercy."

The King's mercy! What that meant depended on the King. In the reign
of Richard of Bordeaux, that prisoner must be heavily-charged to whom it
did not mean at least a smile of pardon--not unfrequently a grant of
lands, or sometimes a coronet. But in the reign of Henry of
Bolingbroke, it meant rigid justice, as he