“Wouldst say a Court fool?”
“Nay—a worser fool than that.”
“How so?”
“I trusted a woman,” answered Wilfred,—bitterly, for him.
“Father! hadst thou ever a lady-love?”
Bertram’s interest was intense at this juncture.
“Go to, Bertram Lyngern!” answered the monk, looking up with a smile. “Be thy thoughts on lady-loves already? Nay, lad; she that I trusted was a kinswoman—no love. Little love in very deed was there betwixt us. And yet”—his voice altered suddenly—“I knew what that was too—once.”
“And she mocked thee, trow?” asked Bertram, who expected a small sensation novel to spring out of this avowal.
Wilfred worked in silence for a minute. Then he said in a low tone, “Forty years’ violets have freshened and faded on her grave; nor one of all of them more fair ne sweet than she.” But there was something in his manner which said, “Question me no further.” And, curious as Bertram was, he obeyed the tacit request.
“And what stood next in thy life, Father?”