of
Ireland.

And then the traitor, robber, and murderer, knelt down at the feet of
Archbishop Arundel, and heard--from man's lips--"Thy sins are forgiven
thee"--but not "Go, and sin no more."

"Master Calverley, you? God have mercy! what aileth you?"

For Hugh Calverley stood at one of the hall windows of Langley Palace,
on the brightest of May mornings, in the year 1388, his face hidden in
his hands, and his whole mien and aspect bearing the traces of sudden
and intense anguish.

"God had no mercy, Mistress Maude!" he wailed under his voice. "We had
no friend save Him, and He was silent to us. He cared nought for us--He
left us alone in the uttermost hour of our woe."

"Nay, sweet Hugh! it was men, not God!" said Bertram's voice soothingly
behind them.

"He gave them leave," replied Hugh in an agonised tone.

It was the old reproachful cry, "Lord, carest thou not that we perish?"
but Maude could not understand it at all. That cry, when it rises
within the fold, is sometimes a triumph, and always a mystery, to those
that are without. "You believe yourselves even now as safe as the
angels, and shortly to be as happy, and you complain thus!" True; but
we are not angels yet. Poor weak, suffering humanity is always
rebellious, without an accompanying unction from the Holy One. But it
is not good for us to forget that such moods are rebellion, and that
they often cause the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.

Bertram quietly drew Maude aside into the next window.

"Let the poor fellow be!" he said compassionately. "Alack, 'tis no
marvel. These traitor loons have hanged his father. And never,
methinks, did son love father more."

"Master Calverley's father!--the Queen's squire?"

"He. And look you, Maude,--heard man ever the like! the Queen's own
Grace was on her knees three hours unto my Lord of Arundel, praying him
to spare Master Calverley's life. Think of it, Maude!--Caesar's
daughter!"

"Mercy, Jesu!"--Maude could imagine nothing more frightful. It seemed
to her equivalent to the whole world tumbling into chaos. What was to
become of "slender folk," such as Bertram and herself, when men breathed
who could hear unmoved the pleadings of "Caesar's daughter?"

"But what said he?"

"Who--my Lord of Arundel? The unpiteous, traitorous, hang-dog lither
oaf!" Bertram would apparently have chosen more opprobrious words if
they would kindly have occurred to him. "Why, he said--`Pray for
yourself