tumult and had found shelter in a white convent with the sisters
thereof, who taught her to pray, and be happy in the peace of the hour
that is exactly like the one before it. The shadow of the dial finger
upon the stone was not more peaceful than the holy round of her life.

"Then came one who met her by the convent wall, met her under the
shade of the orchard trees, met her under cloud of night, till his
soul had power over hers. She followed him by camp and city, fearing
no man's scorn, feeling no woman's reproach, for love's sake and his.
Yet at the last he cast her away, like an empty husk, and sailed over
the seas to his own land. She lived to wed the Sieur de Thouars and to
become my mother."

_"And for this will I reckon with his son William, Duke of Touraine."_

She ceased, and de Retz began to speak.

"By me this girl has been taught the deepest wisdom of the ancients. I
have delved deep in the lore of the ages that this maiden might be
fitted for her task. For I also, that am a marshal of France and of
kin to my Lord Duke of Brittany, have a score to settle with William,
Earl of Douglas, as hath also my master, Louis the Dauphin!"

"It is enough," interjected Crichton the Chancellor, who had listened
to the recital of the Lady Sybilla with manifest impatience, "it is
the old story--the sins of the fathers are upon the children. And this
young man must suffer for those that went before him. They drank of
the full cup, and so he hath come now to the drains. It skills not why
we each desire to make an end of him. We are agreed on the fact. The
question is _how_."