While she was speaking, the Princess was leading Nadia through the rooms which had always been hers, and she now pointed out the little changes and improvements she had made in view of the girl’s return.
“How good you are to me, Marraine!” said Nadia, gratefully.
“Would you have me cruel to you, my poor child? Now, come,” and she sat down in the arm-chair—“come and tell me all about your troubles.”
“Oh, Marraine!” cried Nadia, throwing herself on the ground and burying her face in her godmother’s dress, “I have given up everything because it was right to do it, and I cannot even learn to forgive!”
“Not even forgive? But that is often the hardest thing of all to do. Tell me about it, my child,” repeated the Princess, and Nadia poured forth the story of her first meeting with Caerleon, of his kindness to her, and of the way in which each had learnt to love the other; then his sudden acceptance of the kingdom, with all the changes it had brought in its train; his repeated appeal to her to share his throne, the intrigues by means of which Scythia had sought to gain ascendancy over him through her, her journey to Bellaviste to warn him of the plot against his life, and her resolute but ignominious departure.
“I gave him up because it was right to do it, Marraine,” she said; “and not only am I miserable myself, but I have made him miserable.”
“Was it right?” asked the Princess, quietly.
“Oh yes, Marraine, of course,—at least I knew it must be right because it was so hard to do.”
“Is that the way in which you test your duties, my child? It is a wise plan in many cases, but sometimes dangerous—for instance, if you begin to regard ‘difficult’ as synonymous with ‘right.’ You are told to ‘endure hardness as a good soldier,’ but never to follow hardness as an aim in itself. It is Christ you are to follow. What would you think of a soldier who chose to live out in the snow rather than in the barracks provided for him? Would he make himself a better soldier by ruining his health and risking his life in such a way?”
“No, but——” the idea was too novel for Nadia to grasp it at once in its entirety.