“Mother dear, have a care of my Lady!”
“I will, so!” answered the Dowager; but she added, with a pang of jealous love which she would have rebuked sorely in another—“I would she held thee more in regard.”
“She may, one day,” he said, mournfully, as if quietly accepting the incontrovertible fact. “I told you once, and I yet trust, that the day may dawn wherein my Lady’s heart shall come home to God and me.”
Maude remembered those words five years later.
“And now, Mother, farewell! I trust to be other-whither ere Wednesday set in.”
His mother kissed him, and blessed him, and let him go.
Le Despenser took his usual leave of the household, with a kind word, as was his wont, even to the meanest drudge; and then he went back to his lady’s bower for that last, and to him saddest farewell of all.
His grave, tender manner touched Constance’s impressible heart. She took her leave of him more affectionately than usual.
“Farewell, my Lady!” he faltered, holding her to his breast. “We meet again—where God will, and when.”
“And that will be in France, ere long,” said Constance, sanguinely. “You will send me speedy word of your landing, my Lord?”