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And quiet as the voice was, it had a tone of authority which Philippa involuntarily and unconsciously obeyed. And while she ate, her hostess in her turn became the questioner. "Are you a knight's wife?" "I am the wife of Sir Richard Sergeaux, a knight of Cornwall," said Philippa.
Sir Richard had ridden away on his road to London, whence he was summoned to join his feudal lord, the Earl, and Lady Sergeaux stood looking after him in her old dreamy fashion, though half-an-hour had almost passed since she had caught sight of the last waving of his nodding plume through the trees.
Two months later, by a scribe's letter, written in the name of her half-brother, the young, brave, joyous man upon whose head the old coronet had descended, the news of the Earl's death reached Philippa Sergeaux at Kilquyt. Very differently it affected her from the manner in which she would have received it four years before. Well, it was time he should.
Her mood had changed suddenly at the sight of the text, which she instantly guessed to be the original of her well-remembered device. "I need not go yet," she said, "unless I weary you, Mother." "I am never wearied of the Master's work," answered the low voice. Lady Sergeaux opened the door of the cell.
"I became a nun because my father had decreed it from my cradle, and my mother willed it also. There were but two of us maids, and ah, well! she would not have more than one to suffer." "Never woman woefuller," sadly replied Mother Joan. The next opportunity she had, Lady Sergeaux asked one of the more discreet nuns who Mother Joan was.
Know that I fare reasonably well, and Eustace my squire; and your fair father likewise, saving that he hath showed much anger towards you and me. And thus, praying God and our blessed Lady, and Saint Peter and Saint Paul, to keep you. I rest. "R. Sergeaux."
"Then to-morrow, when the shadow beginneth to lengthen, thou shalt come to the convent gate, and I will meet with thee. Will thy mother give thee leave?" "Ay. She alway giveth me leave to visit the Grey Lady." The appointment was made, and Philippa turned back to the convent. "I was searching you, Lady de Sergeaux," said the portress, when Philippa re-entered the gate.
It was the old perplexity as old as Asaph; but he understood it when he went into the sanctuary of God, and Mother Joan had never followed him there. "Lady de Sergeaux," resumed the blind nun, "there is at times a tone in your voice, which mindeth me strangely of hers hers, of whom I spake but now. If I offend not in asking it, I pray you tell me who were your elders?"
He spoke rather to himself than to Philippa: and his eyes had a far-away look in them, as he lifted his head and gazed from the window over the moorland. "Then what are the Boni-Homines?" inquired Lady Sergeaux. "A few sinners," answered the monk, "whose hearts God hath touched, that they have sought and found that Well of the Living Water."
"If it must be, it may as well be now," he said to himself, with a sigh. So, plodding and resting by turns, he at length arrived at the door of the cell. The door was closed, and the child sat on the step before it, singing softly to herself, and playing with a lapful of wild flowers just as her sister had been doing when Philippa Sergeaux first made her acquaintance.
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