saw me stab the man I hated to the heart, you would think it must be
pardoned to me."

She laughed, and yet her voice was such that Anne lost her breath and
caught at it again.

"Ay, I should love you, sister!" she cried. "Even then I could not but
love you. I should know you could not strike so an innocent creature,
and that to be so hated he must have been worthy of hate. You--are not
like other women, sister Clorinda; but you could not be base--for you
have a great heart."

Clorinda put her hand to her side and laughed again, but with less
mocking in her laughter.

"What do you know of my heart, Anne?" she said. "Till late I did not
know it beat, myself. My lord says 'tis a great one and noble, but I
know 'tis his own that is so. Have I done honestly by him, Anne, as I
told you I would? Have I been fair in my bargain--as fair as an honest
man, and not a puling, slippery woman."

"You have been a great lady," Anne answered, her great dull, soft eyes
filling with slow tears as she gazed at her. "He says that you have
given to him a year of Heaven, and that you seem to him like some
archangel--for the lower angels seem not high enough to set beside you."

"'Tis as I said--'tis his heart that is noble," said Clorinda. "But I
vowed it should be so. He paid--he paid!"

The country saw her lord's happiness as the town had done, and wondered