“Did your Ladyship ever know any who was?” asked Margaret.
The Lady Joan shook her head. “Never—not perfect. My mother was a good woman enough; but there were flaws in her. She was cleverer than my father, and she let him feel it. He was nearer perfection than she, for he was humbler and gentler—God rest his sweet soul! Yet she was a good woman, for all that: but—no, not perfect!”
Suddenly she ceased, and a light came in her eyes.
“You two,” she said, looking on us, “are the Despenser ladies, I believe?”
We assented.
“Do you mind telling me—pardon me if I should not ask—which of you was affianced, long years ago, to the Lord Lawrence de Hastings, sometime Earl of Pembroke?”
“Sometime!” ah me, then my lost love is no more!
I felt as though my tongue refused to speak. Something was coming—what, I did not know.
Margaret answered for me, and the Lady Joan’s hand fell softly on mine.
“Did you love each other,” she said, “when you were little children? If so, we ought to love each other, for he was very dear to me. Mother Annora, he was my father.”