er the Castle shadowed the Bishop's eyes.

"It would not be well," he replied, "to tamper with the works of the
Almighty. Pray rather for this miracle, that your father's heart be
turned toward you and toward the lady, your mother."

So during much of the night she had asked this boon steadfastly. But
clearly she had not been heard.

"Back to your bed!" said her father, and turned his face away.

So she went as far as the leather curtain which hung in the doorway and
there she turned.

"Why do they sing?" she had asked the Bishop, of the blacksmith and the
others, and he had replied into his beard, "To soften the hard of
heart."

So she turned in the doorway and sang in her reedy little voice, much
thinned by the cold, sang to soften her young father's heart.

"The Light of Light Divine,
True Brightness undefined.
He bears for us the shame of sin,
A holy, spotless Child."

But the song failed. Perhaps it was the wrong hour, or perhaps it was
because she had not slept in the manger and brought forth the gift of
voice.

"Blood of the martyrs!" shouted her father, and raised himself on his
elbow. "Are you mad? Get back to your bed. I shall have a word with
someone for this."

Whether it had softened him or not it had stirred him, so she made her
plea.

"It is His birthday. I want to see my mother."

Then she ducked under the curtain and ran as fast as she could back to
where she belonged. Terror winged her feet. She had spoken a forbidden
word.

All sleep was gone from Charles the Fair. He lay on his elbow in his bed
and thought of things that he wished to forget: of the wife he had put
away because in eight years she had borne him no son; of his great lands
that would go to his cousin, Philip of the Black Beard, whom he hated;
of girls in the plain who wooed him with soft eyes and whom he passed
by; of a Jew who lay in a dungeon beneath the Castle because of usury
and other things.

After a time he slept again, but lightly, for the sun came in through
the deep, unshaded window and fell on his face and on the rushes that
covered the floor. And in his sleep the grimness was gone, and the
pride. And his mouth, which was sad, contended with the firmness of his
chin.

Clotilde went back to her bed and tucked her feet under her to warm
them. In the next room her nurse lay on a bed asleep, with her mouth
open; outside in the stone corridor a page slept on a skin, with a
corner over him agai