loss, then this, also, is to be forgiven.... Long life! now in the
watches of one night I live to be an old man! For you may forgetfulness
come at last!"

She turned slightly, looking at him from beneath the gold star. "Wish me
no such happy wishes! Let me not think that such wishes dwell in your
heart. Since that day at Whitehall I have written to you--written twice.
Why did you never answer?"

He looked down upon his clasped hands. "What was there to be said? I
thought, 'I have sorely wounded her whom I love, and with my own words I
have seared that wound as with white heat of iron. Now God keep me man
enough to say no farther word!'"

"I was benumbed that day," she said; "I was frozen. My brother's face
came between us.... Oh, my brother!... Since that day I have seen Sir
John Nevil--"

"Then a just man told you my story justly," he began, but she
interrupted him, her breath coming faster.

"I have also made other inquiry; on my knees, on my face, in the dead of
the night when I knew that thou, too, waked, I have asked of God, and of
our Lord the Christ who suffered.... I know not if they heard me, there
be so many that clamor in their ears...." With a quick movement she
arose from the stone seat and began to pace the grass-plot, her hands
clasped behind her head, the gold star yet bright in the late, late
sunshine. "I would they had answered me distinctly. Perhaps they did....
But be that as it may be I will follow my own heart, I will go my
own way--"