"Marguerite! Dost thou—canst thou—love our Lord as much as I love Guy? It is not possible!"
"A thousand times more, my Damoiselle. Your Nobility, I know, loves Monseigneur very dearly; yet you have other interests apart from him. I have no interest apart from my Lord. All my griefs, all my joys, I take to Him; and until He has laid His hand on them and blessed them, I can neither endure the one nor enjoy the other."
I wonder if Lady Judith feels like that! I should like to ask her, if I could take the liberty.
Marguerite was looking up again into the sky.
"Only think what it will be!" she said. "To look up from the cradle of your dying child, with the anguish of helplessness pressing tight upon your heart—and see Him! To look up from your own sick bed, faint and weary beyond measure—and see Him! From the bitter sense of sin and failure—from cruel words and unkind looks—from loneliness and desolation—from hunger and cold and homelessness—to look up, and see Him! There will be some suffering all these things when He comes. Oh, why are His chariot-wheels so long in coming? Does not He long for it even more than we?"
I was silent. She looked—this old villein woman—almost like one inspired.
"He knows!" she added softly. "He knows. He can wait. Then we can. Surely I come quickly. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!"'
Amaury called me, and I left her there.
He wanted to creep through the columns, and wished me to try first, as I am slimmer than he. I managed it pretty well,—so now all my sins are remitted, and I do feel so good and nice! Lady Isabel could hardly do it; and Amaury, who has been growing fatter of late, could not get through at all. He was much disappointed, and very cross in consequence. Damoiselle Melisende would not try. She said, laughing, that she was quite sure she could not push through, and she must get her sins forgiven some other way. But she mischievously ran and fetched old Marguerite, and putting on a grave face, proposed to her to try the feat. Now I am quite certain Marguerite could never have done it; for though she is not stout, she is a large-built woman. But she looked at the place for a moment, and then said to Melisende—
"If the Damoiselle pleases, what will follow?"