asked but for
one, and when man doth that, he commonly gets the lesser of the twain.
Well! I shall be glad to see my Jeanne. Let her come in."

Lady Basset came forward and bent over the dying woman.

"Dame!" she said.

"Come, now!" was the answer. "There be folks enough call me Dame. Only
two in all this world can call me Mother."

"Mother!" was the response, in a tremulous voice. And then the icy
stateliness broke up, and passionate sobs broke in, mingled with the
sounds of "O Mother! Mother!"

"That's good, little lass," said the Countess. "It's good to hear that,
but once, _ma fillette_. But wherefore tarrieth thy brother away? It
must be King Edward that will not suffer him to come."

It was piteous to hear her cling thus to the old illusion. All the time
of her imprisonment, though now and then in a fit of anger she could
hurl bitter names at her son, yet, when calm, she had usually maintained
that he was kept away from her, and refused to be convinced that his
absence was of his own free will. The longer the illusion lasted, the
more stubbornly she upheld it.

"'Tis not always the best-loved that loveth back the best," said
Perrote, gently, "without man's best love be, as it should be, fixed on
God. And 'tis common for fathers and mothers to love better than they
be loved; the which is more than all other true of the Father in
Heaven."

"Thou mayest keep thy sermons, old woman, till mass is sung," said the
Countess, in her cynical style. "Ah me! My Jean would come to the old,
white-haired mother that risked her life for his--he would come if he
could. He must know how my soul hungereth for the sight of his face. I
want nothing else. Heaven would be Purgatory to me without him."

"Ah, my dear Lady!" tenderly replied Perrote. "If only I might hear you
say that of the Lord that laid down His life for you!"

"I am not a nun," was the answer; "and I shall not say that which I feel
not."

"God forbid you should, Lady! But I pray Him to grant you so to feel."

"I tell thee, I am not a nun," said the Countess, rather pettishly.

Her idea was that real holiness was impossible out of the cloister, and
that to love God was an entirely different type of feeling from the
affection she had for her human friends. This was the usual sentiment
in the Middle Ages. But Perrote had been taught of God, and while her
educational prejudices acted like coloured or smoked glass, and dimmed
the purity