tisfied with a tub and a towel. A comb
was the only instrument used for dressing the hair, except where
crisping-pins were required; and mirrors were always fixtures against
the wall.

A long time elapsed before Maude felt at home at Cardiff; and she could
not avoid seeing that a still longer period passed before Constance did
so. The latter was restless and unsettled. She had escaped from the
rule of her step-mother to that of her mother-in-law, and she disliked
the one only a little less than the other; though "Daughter" fell very
differently on the ear from the lips of a child of ten, and from those
of a woman who was approaching sixty. But the worst point of
Constance's new life was her utter indifference to her husband. She
looked upon his gentle deference to her wishes as want of spirit, and
upon his quiet, reserved, undemonstrative manner as want of brains.
From loving him she was as far as she had been in those old days when
she had so cruelly told his sister Margaret that "when she loved Tom,
she would let him know."

That he loved her, and that very dearly, was patent to the most
superficial observer. Maude, who was not very observant of others, used
to notice how his eyes followed her wherever she went, brightened at the
sound of her step, and kindled eagerly when she spoke. The Dowager saw
it too, with considerable disapproval; and thought it desirable to turn
her observations to profit by a grave admonition to her son upon the sin
and folly of idolatry. She meant rightly enough, yet it sounded harsh
and cruel, when she bluntly reminded him that Constance manifestly cared
nothing for him.

Le Despenser's lip quivered with pain.

"Let be, fair Mother," he said gently. "It may be yet, one day, that my
Lady's heart shall come home to God and me, and that she shall then say
unto me, `I love thee.'"

Did that day ever come? Ay, it did come; but not during his day. The
time came when no music could have been comparable to the sound of his
voice--when she would have given all the world for one glimpse of his
smile--when she felt, like Avice, as though she could have climbed and
rent the heavens to have won him back to her. But the heavens had
closed between them before that day came. While they journeyed side by
side in this mortal world, he never heard her say, "I love thee."

The news received during the next few months was not likely to make
Constance feel more at home at Cardiff than before.