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Long afterward was Edward Maudelain to remember this brief and tranquil period of his life, and to wonder over the man that he had been through this short while. Embittered and suspicious she had found him, noted for the carping tongue he lacked both power and inclination to bridle; and she had, against his nature, made Maudelain see that every person is at bottom lovable, and all vices but the stains of a traveller midway in a dusty journey; and had led the priest no longer to do good for his soul’s health, but simply for his fellow’s benefit.

And in place of that monstrous passion which had at first view of her possessed the priest, now, like a sheltered taper, glowed an adoration which yearned, in mockery of common-sense, to suffer somehow for this beautiful and gracious comrade; though very often a sudden pity for her loneliness and the knowledge that she dared trust no one save himself would throttle him like two assassins and move the hot-blooded young man to an exquisite agony of self-contempt and exultation.

Now Maudelain made excellent songs, it was a matter of common report. Yet but once in their close friendship had the Queen commanded him to make a song for her. This had been at Dover, about vespers, in the starved and tiny garden overlooking the English Channel, upon which her apartments faced; and the priest had fingered his lute for an appreciable while before he sang, a thought more harshly than was his custom.

Sang Maudelain;

“Ave Maria! now cry we so
That see night wake and daylight go.

“Mother and Maid, in nothing incomplete,
This night that gathers is more light and fleet
Than twilight trod alway with stumbling feet,
Agentes uno animo.

“Ever we touch the prize we dare not take!
Ever we know that thirst we dare not slake!
And ever to a dreamed-of goal we make–
Est caeli in palatio!

“Yet long the road, and very frail are we
That may not lightly curb mortality,
Nor lightly tread together silently,
Et carmen unum facio:

“Mater, ora filium,
Ut post hoc exilium
Nobis donet gaudium
Beatorum omnium!”

Dame Anne had risen. She said nothing. She stayed in this posture for a lengthy while, reeling, one hand yet clasping either breast. More lately she laughed, and began to speak of Long Simon’s recent fever. Was there no method of establishing him in another cottage? No, the priest said, the villiens, like the cattle, were by ordinary deeded with the land.

One day, about the hour of prime, in that season of the year when fields smell of young grass, the Duke of Gloucester sent for Edward Maudelain. The court was then at Windsor. The priest came quickly to his patron. He found the Duke in company with Edmund of York and bland Harry of Derby, John of Gaunt’s oldest son. Each was a proud and handsome man. To-day Gloucester was gnawing at his finger nails, big York seemed half-asleep, and the Earl of Derby patiently to await something as yet ineffably remote.

“Sit down!” snarled Gloucester. His lean and evil countenance was that of a tired devil. The priest obeyed, wondering so high an honor should be accorded him in the view of three great noblemen. Then Gloucester said, in his sharp way: “Edward, you know, as England knows, the King’s intention toward us three and our adherents. It has come to our demolishment or his. I confess a preference in the matter. I have consulted with the Pope concerning the advisability of taking the crown into my own hands. Edmund here does not want it, and John is already achieving one in Spain. Eh, in imagination I was already King of England, and I had dreamed– Well! to-day the prosaic courier arrived. Urban–the Neapolitan swine!–dares give me no assistance. It is decreed I shall never reign in these islands. And I had dreamed– Meanwhile, de Vere and de la Pole are at the King day and night, urging revolt. Within the week the three heads of us will embellish Temple Bar. You, of course, they will only hang.”