plimentary adjectives which she had not spared in speaking to
Philippa were utterly discarded now. Would it not do at least as much
harm as good to revive the old memories of pain by telling her this?
Philippa decided to remain silent.

The summer was passing away, and the autumn hues were slowly creeping
over the forest, when Sir Richard's answer arrived at Shaftesbury. It
was not a pleasing missive; but it would have cost Philippa more tears
if it had made her less angry. That gentleman had not written in a good
temper; but he was not without excuse, for he had suffered something
himself. He had not dared to reply to Philippa's entreaty, without
seeking in his turn the permission of the Earl of Arundel, in whose
hands his fortune lay to make or mar. And, by one of those
uncomfortable coincidences which have led to the proverb that
"Misfortunes never come single," it so happened that the news of the
Countess's death had reached the Earl on the very morning whereon Sir
Richard laid Philippa's letter before him. The result was that there
broke on the devoted head of Sir Richard a tempest of ungovernable rage,
so extremely unpleasant in character that he might be excused for his
anxiety to avoid provoking a second edition of it. The Earl was
grieved--so far as a nature like his could entertain grief--to lose his
second wife; but to find that the first wife had been discovered, and by
her daughter, possessed the additional character of insult. That the
occurrence was accidental did not alter matters. Words would not
content the aggrieved mourner: his hand sought the hilt of his sword,
and Sir Richard, thinking discretion the better part of valour, made his
way, as quickly as the laws of matter and space allowed him, out of the
terrible presence whereinto he had rashly ventured. Feeling himself
wholly innocent of any provocation, it was not surprising that he should
proceed to dictate a letter to his wife, scarcely calculated to gratify
her feelings. Thus ran the offending document:--

"Dame,--Your epistle hath reached mine hands, [see Note 2] wherein it
hath pleased you to give me to know of your finding of the Lady Isabel
La Despenser, your fair mother, [see Note 3] and likewise of your
desire that she should visit you at my Manor of Kilquyt. Know
therefore, that I can in no wise assent to the same. For I am assured
that it should provoke, and that in no small degree, the wrath of your
fair fat