od and wise purposes of God, and I
think that He often sends His bright angels to comfort her--for she is
never sad--and when you sing as you sang just now, I seem to
understand, and my heart says that it is well."

While they spoke the Lady Margaret came into the room, with a sudden
radiance; and coming to Paul she kneeled down beside him, and kissed
his hand suddenly, and said, "Helen thanks you, and I thank you, Sir
Paul, for giving her such joy as you could hardly believe."

There came a kind of mist over Paul's eyes, to feel the touch of the
lips that he loved so well upon his hand; but at the same time it
appeared to him like a kind of sin that he who seemed to himself, in
that moment, so stained and hard, should have reverence done him by
one so pure. So he raised her up, and said, "Nay, this is not meet";
and he would have said many other words that rushed together in his
mind, but he could not frame them right. But presently the Lady
Beckwith excused herself and went; and then Paul for a sweet hour
sate, and talked low and softly to the maiden, and threw such worship
into his voice that she was amazed. But he said no word of love. And
she told him of their simple life, and how her sister suffered. And
then Paul feared to stay longer, and went with a mighty and tumultuous
joy in his heart.

Then for many days Paul went thus to the Isle of Thorns--and the Lady
Margaret threw aside her fear of him, and would greet him like a
brother. Sometimes he would find her waiting for him at the gate, and
then the air was suddenly full of a holy radiance. And the Lady
Beckwith, too, began to use him like a son; but the Lady Helen he
never saw--only once or twice he heard her soft voice speak in the
dark room. And Paul made new songs for her, but all the time it was
for Margaret that he sang.

And they at the castle wondered why Sir Paul, who used formerly to sit
so much in his chamber, now went so much abroad. But he guarded his
secret, and they knew not whither he went; only he saw once, from
looks that passed between two of the maidens, that they spoke of him;
and this in times past might have made him ashamed, but now his heart
was too high, and he cared not.

There came a day when Paul, finding himself alone with the Lady
Beckwith, opened his heart suddenly to her; but he was checked, as it
were, by a sudden hand, for there came into her face a sad and
troubled look, as though she blamed herself for something. Then