Doucebelle was silent.
“Was it his doing,” asked Margaret in a low voice, “or did the Lord King order it?”
“Oh, it was the Lord King’s doing, entirely, the Lady says.”
“O Dulcie! I ought to wish it were his, because there would be more likelihood of his being happy: but I cannot—I cannot!”
“My poor Margaret, I do not wonder!” answered Doucebelle tenderly.
“Is it very wicked,” added Margaret, in a voice of deep pain, “not to be able to wish him to be happy, without me? It is so hard, Dulcie! To be shut out from the warmth and the sunlight, and to see some one else let in! I suppose that is a selfish feeling. But it is so hard!”
“My poor darling!” was all that Doucebelle could say.
“Father Bruno said, that so long as we kept saying, ‘My will be done,’ we must not expect God to comfort us. Yet how are we to give over? O Dulcie, I thought I was beginning to submit, and this has stirred all up again. My heart cries out and says, ‘This shall not be! I will not have it so!’ And if God will have it so!—How am I to learn to bend my will to His?”
Neither of the girls had heard any one enter, and they were a little startled when a third voice replied—
“None but Himself can teach thee that, my daughter. If thou canst not yet give Him thy will, ask Him to take it in spite of thee.”