in Holland, and a rare heavy one,
the saints be praised for't."

"Ay, mother, I am but a sorry, ungrateful wretch to weep. If only Gerard
were here to see it. 'Tis strange; I bore him well enow to be away from
me in my sorrow; but oh, it does seem so hard he should not share my
joy. Prithee, prithee, come to me, Gerard! dear, dear Gerard!" And she
stretched out her feeble arms.

Catherine hustled about, but avoided Margaret's eyes; for she could not
restrain her own tears at hearing her own absent child thus earnestly
addressed.

Presently, turning round, she found Margaret looking at her with a
singular expression. "Heard you nought?"

"No, my lamb. What?"

"I did cry on Gerard, but now."

"Ay, ay, sure I heard that."

"Well, he answered me."

"Tush, girl: say not that."

"Mother, as sure as I lie here, with his boy by my side, his voice came
back to me, 'Margaret!' So. Yet methought 'twas not his happy voice. But
that might be the distance. All voices go off sad like at a distance.
Why art not happy, sweetheart? and I so happy this night? Mother, I seem
never to have felt a pain or known a care." And her sweet eyes turned
and gloated on the little face in silence.

That very night Gerard flung himself into the Tiber. And that very
hour she heard him speak her name, he cried aloud in death's jaws and
despair's.

"Margaret!"

Account for it those who can. I cannot.

CHAPTER LXIX

In the guest chamber of a Dominican convent lay a single stranger,
exhausted by successive and violent fits of nausea, which had at last
subsided, leaving him almost as weak as Margaret lay that night in
Holland.

A huge wood fire burned on the hearth, and beside it hung the patient's
clothes.

A gigantic friar sat by his bedside, reading pious collects aloud from
his breviary.

The patient at times eyed him, and seemed to listen: at others closed
his eyes and moaned.

The monk kneeled down with his face touching the ground and prayed for
him; then rose and bade him farewell. "Day breaks," said he; "I must
prepare for matins."

"Good Father Jerome, before you go, how came I hither?"

"By the hand of Heaven. You flung away God's gift. He bestowed it on you
again. Think on it! Hast tried the world and found its gall. Now try the
Church! The Church is peace. Pax vobiscum."

He was gone. Gerard lay back, meditating and wondering, till weak and
wearied he fell into a doze.

When he awoke again he found a new nur