This letter I read myself, and I plainly saw that these twain had sadly
marred their best joy in life by over-hasty ire. Albeit, I knew full
well how stubborn a spirit was Aunt Jacoba's, I nevertheless strove to
move her to send a letter to her son bidding him home; yet she would not,
though she bewailed herself sorely.

"Only one thing of those he requires of me can I in all truth grant him,"
quoth she. "If you find him, you may tell him that his mother sends her
fondest blessing, and assure him of my heart's deepest devotion; nay, and
let him understand that I am pining with longing for him, and that I obey
his will inasmuch as that I truly mourn the death of his beloved;
for that is verily the truth, the Virgin and the Saints be my witness.
Yet I may not and I will not open my doors to him till he has craved my
forgiveness, and if I did so he must think of his own mother as a
perjured woman."

Hereupon I showed her--and my eyes overflowed--that his oath stood forth
as against her oath, and that one was as weighty as the other in the
sight of the Most High.

"Set aside that cruel vow, my dear aunt," cried I, "I will make any
pilgrimage with you, and I know full well that no penance will seem
overhard to you."

"No, no, of a surety, Margery, no!" she replied with a groan. "And the
Chaplain said the like to me long ago; and yet I feel in my heart that
you and he are in the wrong. An oath sworn by Christ's wounds!--Moreover
I am the elder and his mother, he is the younger and my son. It is his
part to come to me, and if he then shall make a pilgrimage it shall be to
Rome and the Holy Sepulchre. He has time before him in which to do any