r shoon!"

But a new voice broke in upon the railing of the hideous woman fiend.

"_Out, foul hag! Get you to your own place!_" it said, with an accent
strong and commanding.

And the affrighted and heart-sick girls turned them about to see the
Lady Sybilla stand fair and pale at the head of the turret stair which
opened out upon the roof of the White Tower.

At this interruption the eyes of La Meffraye seemed to burn with a
fresher fury, and the green light in them shone as shines an emerald
stone held up to the sun.

The hag cowered, however, before the outstretched index finger of
Sybilla de Thouars.

"Ah, fair lady," she whimpered, "be not angry--and tell not my lord, I
beseech you. I did but jest."

"_Hence!_" the finger was still outstretched, and, in obedience to the
threatening gesture, the hag shrank away. But as she passed through
the portal down the steps of the turret, she flung back certain words
with a defiant fleer.

"Ah, you are young, my lady, and for the present--for the present your
power is greater than mine. But wait! Your beauty will wither and grow
old. Your power will depart from you. But La Meffraye can never grow
older, and when once the secret is discovered, and my lord is young
again, La Meffraye is the one who with him shall bloom with immortal
youth, while you, proud lady, lie cold in the belly of the worm."

* * * * *

"It is true--all too true," said Sybilla de Thouars, sadly, "they are
dead. The young, the noble were--and are no more. I who speak saw them
die. And that so greatly, that even in death their lives cease not.
Their glory shall flow on so that the young brook shall become a
river, and the river become a sea."

Then in few words and quiet, she told them all the heavy tale.

But when the maids made as though they would cleave to her for the
sympathy that was in her words and because of her tears, she set the
palms of her hands against their breasts and cried, "Come not near one
whom not all the fires of purgatory can purify--one who, like
Iscariot, hath contracted herself outside the mercy of God and of our
Lord Christ!"

But all the more they clave to her, overpassing her protestations and
clasping her, so that, being deeply moved, she sat down on the steps
of a corner turret which rose from the greater, and wept there, with
the weeping wherewith women are wont to ease the heart.

Then went Maud Lindesay to her and set her hand