His age was only twenty-six; he left no child but the disinherited
Alianora, and his sisters took good care that she should remain
disinherited. They pounced upon the lands of the dead brother with an
eagerness which would have been rather more decent had it been a little
less apparent; and to the widowed Lucia, who was the least guilty party
to the conspiracy for which she had been made the decoy, they left
little beyond her wardrobe. She was actually reduced to appeal to the
King's mercy for means to live. Henry responded to her piteous petition
by the offer of his brother of Dorset as a second husband. Lucia was
one of those women who are born actresses, and whose nature it is to do
things which seem forced and unnatural to others. She flattered the
King with anticipations that she was on the point of complying with his
wishes, till the last moment; and then she eloped with Sir Henry de
Mortimer, possibly a distant connection of the Earl of March. It may be
added, since Lucia now disappears from the story, that she survived her
second marriage for fourteen years, and showed herself at her death a
most devout member of the orthodox Church, by a will which was from
beginning to end a string of bequests for masses, to be sung for the
repose of her soul, and of the soul of Kent.

Bertram and Maude, to whom the news came first, scarcely knew how to
tell Constance of Kent's death. At last Maude thought of dressing the
little Alianora in daughter's mourning, and sending her into her
mother's room alone. The gradations of mourning were at that time so
distinct and minute that Constance's practised eye would read the
parable in an instant. So they broke in that manner the news they dared
not tell her.

For the whole day there was no sign from Constance that she had even
noticed the hint. Her voice and manner showed no change. But at night,
when the little child of three years old knelt at her mother's knee for
her evening prayer, said Lollard-wise in simple English, they found it
had not escaped her. As the child came to the usual "God bless my
father and mother,"--which, fatherless as she had always been, she had
been taught to say,--Constance quietly checked her, and made her say,
"God bless my mother" only. And at the close, little Alianora was
instructed to add,--"God pardon my father's soul."

Knowing how passionately Constance had once loved Kent, this calm show
of indifference puzzled Maude Lyngern sor