“With Harry of Bolingbroke in the throne, and Thomas de Arundel bearing the mitre?” responded the old lady with a laugh. “Marry, my maid, that were a new thing.”
“Were it so, Madam?” asked Willemina innocently. “Truly, Sir Ademar is well defamed (has a good reputation) of all around here.”
“This is not the world, child!” said the Dowager.
“’Tis more like— Well, Sir Ademar? Hath my Lord’s Grace—Jésu, pour ta pité!”
Ademar had walked quietly into the room, and placed a paper in the hands of the Dowager. It was a solemn writ of excommunication against Ademar de Milford, clerk in orders, and it was dated on the Sunday which had intervened between the marriage of Maude and that of Constance. All official acts of Ademar since that day were invalidated. Maude’s marriage, therefore, was not affected, but Constance was no longer Countess of Kent.
“Sir Ademar, this is dread!” exclaimed the old lady in trembling accents. “What can my Lord’s Grace have against you? This—this toucheth right nearly the Lady, our daughter—Christ aid her of His mercy!”
“Maybe, Madam, it were so intended,” said Ademar shrewdly. “For me, truly I wis little what my Lord hath against me—saving that I see not in all matters by his most reverend eyes. I know better what the Lord hath against me—yet what need I note it, seeing it is cancelled in the blood of His Son?—But for our Lady—ah me!”
“Sir Ademar!”—and the dark sunken eyes of the Dowager looked very keenly into his—“arede me your thought—is my Lord of Kent he that should repair this wrong, or no?”
Ademar’s voice was silent; but his eyes said,—“No!”
“God comfort her!” murmured the old lady, turning away. “For, ill as she should brook the loss of him, yet methinks, if I know her well, she might bear even that lighter than the witting that her name was made a name of scorn for ever.”