am most unsatisfied," answered Philippa; "otherwise I had not come to
you. I want rest."

"And yet Christ hath been saying all your life, to you, as to
others,--`Come unto Me, all ye that travail and are weary laden, and I
will give you rest.'"

"He never gave it me."

"Because you never came for it."

"I wonder if He can give it," said Philippa, sighing.

"Trust me that He can. I never knew it till I came to Him."

"But are you at rest? You scarcely looked so just now."

"At rest," said the Grey Lady, "except when a breeze of earth stirs the
soul which should be soaring above earth--when the dreams of earth come
like a thick curtain between that soul and the hope of that Heaven--as
it was just now."

"Then you are not exempt from that?"

"In coming to Christ for rest, we do not leave our human hearts and our
human infirmities behind us--assuredly not."

"Then do you think it wrong to desire to beloved?"

"Not wrong to desire Christ's love."

"But to desire the love of some human being, or of any human being?"

The eremitess paused an instant before she answered.

"I should condemn myself if I said so," she replied in a low tone, the
sad cadence returning to her voice. "I must leave that with God. He
hath undertaken to purge me from sin, and He knows what is sin. If that
be so, He will purge me from it. I have put myself in His hands, to be
dealt with as pleaseth Him; and my Physician will give me the medicines
which He seeth me to need. Let me counsel you to do the same."

"Yet what pleaseth Him might not please me."

"It would be strange if it did."

"Why?" said Philippa.

"Because it is your nature to love sin, and it is His nature to love
holiness. And what we love, we become. He that loveth sin must needs
be a sinner."

"I do not think I love sin," rejoined Philippa, rather offended.

"That is because you cannot see yourself."

Just what Guy of Ashridge had told her; but not more palatable now than
it had been then.

"What is sin?" asked the Grey Lady.

Philippa was ready with a list--of sins which she felt certain she had
not committed.

"Give me leave to add one," said the eremitess. "Pride is sin; nay, it
is the abominable sin which God hateth. And is there no pride in you,
Lady de Sergeaux? You tell me you cannot forgive your own father. Now
I know nothing of you, nor of him; but if you could see yourself as you
stand in God's sight--whatever it be that he hath done