"If only a man might die when he would! The sun is gone down, and there be no stars for me."
"Nay, my gracious Lord, I cry you mercy!" said Frideswide gently. "The sun is but gone behind a cloud, for our Lord Jesu Christ is the sun of His people. It is the star which has set. The sun is there as aforetime."
"Then the cloud is sore thick, for I see no light."
"Not now, my Lord. It will break forth again."
"Is that so sure?" said the Duke, mournfully. "Ah, you are young and hopeful; to you the birds always chant ’To-morrow.’ But I—I am a man old before his time, and hope is gone from me."
"Mistress Frideswide," was the earnest answer, "wit you what it is to stretch forth numb hands into the darkness, and not find them taken?—to feel none other hands meeting yours?"
"So long as the numbness is but in mine hands, my Lord, I know not that it signifieth much. They may be taken, yet be too numb to feel it. Truly, I am but a poor maid and a young, and of little wit: some doctor of the Church could aid your Lordship, but not I. Yet if I might speak one word, it should be,—dear my Lord, if our Lord have gripped hold of your Lordship, will it matter whether your hands have hold of Him or no? They be safe borne, methinks, whom Christ carrieth."
"Yet if one feel not the carrying—only a sense of falling down, down, into a pit whereto is no bottom"——
"My gracious Lord, can that be if you have trusted our Lord to carry you? Shall your feeling be put in enmity to His word? Have you come to Him? for if so, you give Him the lie to say He hath cast you out."
The Duke rose. "My maid," he said, "there be times when it looks to mine eyes as though mine whole life had been but one mighty blunder, and one great sin."
"Be it so, my Lord. Is Christ strong enough to bear it?"
"Have you any need? If a burden lay at my feet that I could not lift, and my brother stood by, think you I should tarry to ask him to bear it for me till I could lift it up and give it to him? Is He that carried our sins away upon His cross become so weak that He cannot bear our sorrows now? If He can hold heaven and earth, verily He can hold you and me."
"Amen!" said the Duke softly. "Mistress Frideswide, we may never set eyes again each on other: and you and your sister have been true friends to me. Pray you, do me so much pleasure as to wear this gold chain for my sake. I would I had a better gift to mine hand, but a man that hath spent half his life in exile, and hath his lands proscribed, is not he that can make rich gifts."