Now arose a low chanting and then murmured prayers, and soon a smell of incense reached them. Then at last the mystic bell struck mellow on the night air and she knew that God was made and that men, maids, and Countess-widow were bowed before this mystery. The page bent low and crossed himself and a strange jealousy rushed over her that he should be of this sort, when she was not, for she loved the boy unreasonably.
"Your mother is a good Catholic, I see," she said, when the chant grew louder and covered her voice.
"I do not know, madam," he said.
"You do not know?" she cried, "and why not?"
"Because I do not know my mother, dear madam," he answered, and flushed to where his slim neck was hidden by his long hair.
Then a keen trouble rose in her and grew ever stronger, and the boy's eyes frightened her and yet she must watch him. Steadily she looked at him and sat as one in a dream and thought no more of going away, but when the Countess and her train came back and the men had vanished and the maids-in-waiting were whispering around the great fireplace, she put out her hand and caught the young widow's silken gown.
"Who—who is his mother?" she asked eagerly.
"Who should be?" the Countess answered strangely, "whom hath he a look of, guest of mine?"
The boy lifted his face as she put a shaking finger under his round chin and turned his eyes up to her, and a shiver ran through her—for they were her own eyes.
"This—this is no boy of mine!" she gasped, shaking with more than terror.