A shadow passed over the lady's face. "It was not to please herself," she said, "but it was in fulfilment of a promise given to the Queen several years ago. We postponed its fulfilment as long as we could," she added, "for we did not like parting with our home bird, Cicely being such a help and comfort to us at home."
"Yes, yes, I know; and now you have sent her away," groaned Miles.
The lady looked at him, as Maud had done. Surely there was more than mere friendship here, she thought; and then she wondered whether her darling had carried this secret love with her to the convent, to make her life bitter with regrets through all the slow years that must pass over her head.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she still held the young man's hand as she said, "Life is full of such sorrows!"
"Yes, it may be," said Miles, bitterly, "but who sends them? Who makes them? Who has condemned Cicely and me to a life-long sorrow? I came to-day to tell you that I loved your daughter better than life, and to ask if I might win her love in return, and I am told that only death can give her to me now! Is this fair? Is this just? You say my Cicely did not go to please herself, but the Queen. What right has even Queen Catherine to blight two young lives? She is a good woman all are agreed, but it is also said she would be happier in the convent than at the Court. Yet what right has she to condemn another to such a life?"
In his bitter disappointment Miles forgot where he was, or to whom he was speaking, but the lady knew that incautious words were often carried to the Court, and even to the Queen and young Princess, and so, for fear mischief should follow upon it, she drew Miles into the house, where they could at least talk over the matter without fear of being overheard.
But the more Miles said, the more convinced the lady became that Cicely fully reciprocated his affection, and that it was the hope of seeing her lover once more that had made the girl watch so often and so wistfully at the windows for a day or two before she went away. She told Miles of this now, but it seemed rather to increase his distress than to comfort him, to hear that Cicely might really have loved him, as his father said she did; and he held up his hand, and said in a hoarse whisper, "Do not make my burden harder than I can bear. To think that she, my darling Cicely, is in the convent. But giving all her mind and strength to its duties is bad enough, but to think of her pining for the life we might have lived together, would be more than I could endure. Certainly I shall try every means to get her released, and I have much influence now, and the vows are not irrecoverable."
The lady shuddered. Hard as her child's lot might be, it would be harder for everybody if she should dare to draw back, even though she was as yet only a novice; for in the sight of the Queen she had been a pledged nun for several years. Cicely had rather enjoyed the little distinction this gave her among the immediate circle of the Queen's ladies, and it had not been difficult for her to leave the more merry of the Court festivities, for she loved the quiet of her own home far more than the glare, and glitter, and gossip of the Court—even that which surrounded the Queen, which was far more sedate than where the King held undivided rule.
So she had been called "the little nun" for several years past, because of her quiet domestic ways and pleasures, and it seemed to those who only knew her about the Court that it was only natural that she should become a nun in reality when she was old enough to take the vows; and they rather wondered that this had been delayed so long, than that Cicely had gone so early to the convent.
But this Court gossip had not reached her home, where Miles alone knew her, and where she was always a merry, happy girl, while thoughtful and careful to spare her mother trouble, and take her full share in the domestic work that fell to the share of all ladies in those days.