ne at the window of the
hall, leaning her arms on the wide window-ledge, a voice asked behind
her,--"Art yet thinking of Hawise Gerard?"

"I was so but this moment, Madam," replied Maude, turning round to meet
the eyes of the Lady de Narbonne, now quiet and grave enough. "'Tis
little marvel, for I loved her dear."

"And love lasteth with thee--how long time?"

"Till death, assuredly," said Maude. "What may lie beyond death I wis
nothing."

"Till what manner of death? The resurrection, men say, shall give back
the dead. But what shall give back a dead heart or a lost soul? Can
thy love pass such death as this, Maude Gerard?"

"Madam, I said never unto your Ladyship that Hawise Gerard was kinswoman
of mine. How wit you the same?"

A faint, soft smile, very unlike her usual one, so bright and cold,
flickered for a moment on the lips of the Lady de Narbonne.

"Not too far gone for that, Cousin Maude," she said.

"`Cousin'--Madam! You are--"

"I am Avice de Narbonne, waiting-dame unto my Lady of Buckingham's
Grace. I was Hawise Gerard, David Gerard's daughter."

"Hawise! Thou toldest me she was dead!" cried Maude confusedly.

"That Hawise Gerard whom thou knewest is dead and gone, long ago. Thou
wilt never see her again. Thy mother Eleanor is not more dead than she;
but the one may return to thee on the resurrection morrow, and the other
never can. Tell me now whether I could arede thee, as thou wouldst have
had it, how, or where, or when, thy cousin Hawise died?"

"Our dear Lady be thine aid, Hawise! What has changed thee so sore?"
asked Maude, the tears running down her cheeks.

"Call me Avice, Maude. Hawise is old-fashioned," said the lady coolly.

Maude seized her cousin's hands, and looking into her eyes, spoke as
girls of her age rarely speak, though they think frequently.

"Come back to me, Hawise Gerard!--from the dead, if thou wilt have it
so. Cousin Hawise--fair, gent, shamefaced, loving, holy!--come back to
me, and speak with the olden voice, and give me to wit what terrible
thing hath been, to take away thyself, and leave but this instead of
thee!"

Maude's own earnestness was so intense, that she felt as if her
passionate words must have moved a granite mountain; but they fell cold
and powerless upon Avice de Narbonne.

"Look out into the dark this night, Maude, and call thy mother, and see
whether she will answer. The dead _cannot_ come back. I have no more
power to call ba