e maid?" she asked, with a light swing of
her golden pomander--the vinaigrette of the Middle Ages.

Maude had become very tired of being asked her name, the more so since
it was the manner in which strangers usually opened negotiations with
her. She found it the less agreeable because she was conscious of no
right to any surname, her mother's being the only one she knew. So she
answered "Maude" rather shortly.

"Maude--only Maude?"

"Only Maude. Madam, might it like your Ladyship to tell me if you wit
of one Hawise Gerard anything?"

If the Lady de Narbonne would talk to her, Maude resolved to utilise the
occasion; though she felt there could be little indeed in common between
her gentle, modest cousin, and this far from retiring young widow. That
they could not have been intimate friends Maude was sure; but
acquaintances they might be--and must be, unless the Lady de Narbonne
had been too short a time at Pleshy to know Hawise. As Maude in
speaking lifted her eyes to the lady's face, she saw the smiling lips
grow suddenly grave, and the cold bright light die out of the beaming
eyes.

"Child," said the Lady de Narbonne seriously, "Hawise Gerard is dead."

"Woe is me! I feared so much," answered Maude sorrowfully. "And might
it please you, Madam, to arede [tell] me fully when she died, and how,
and where?"

"She died to thee, little maid, when she went to the Castle of Pleshy,"
was the unsatisfactory answer.

"May I wit no more, Madam? Your Ladyship knew her, trow?"

"Once," said the lady, with a slight quiver of her lower lip,--"long,
long ago!" And she suddenly turned her head, which had been for a
moment averted from Maude, round towards her. "`When, and how, and
where?'" she repeated. "Little maid, some dying is slower than men may
tell the hour, and there be graves that are not dug in earth. Thy
cousin Hawise is dead and gone. Forget her."

"That can I never!" replied Maude tenderly, as the memory of her dead
came fresh and warm upon her.

The Lady de Narbonne rose abruptly, and walked away, without another
word, to the further end of the room. Half an hour later, Maude saw her
in the midst of a gay group, laughing and jesting in the cheeriest
manner. Of what sort of stuff could the woman be made?

The Countess of Buckingham did not leave Langley until after dinner the
next day--that is to say, about eleven a.m. A little before dinner, as
Maude, not being wanted at the moment, stood alo