"The question is," said the Bishop mildly, "why she should have been
driven to refuge. A gentle lady, a faithful wife--"

"Deus!" The young _seigneur_ clapped a fist on the table. "You know well
the reason. A barren woman!"

"She had borne you a daughter."

But Charles was far gone in rage and out of hand. The Bishop took his
offended ears to bed, and left him to sit alone by the dying fire, with
bitterness for company.

Came into the courtyard at midnight the Christmas singers from the town;
the blacksmith rolling a great bass, the crockery-seller who sang
falsetto, and a fool of the village who had slept overnight in a manger
on the holy eve a year before and had brought from it, not wit, but a
voice from Heaven. A miracle of miracles.

The men-at-arms in the courtyard stood back to give them space. They
sang with eyes upturned, with full-throated vigour, albeit a bit
warily, with an anxious glance now and then toward those windows beyond
which the young lord sulked by the fire.

"The Light of Light Divine,
True Brightness undefiled.
He bears for us the shame of sin,
A holy, spotless Child."

They sang to the frosty air.