Here the voice of the Lady Sybil was heard, and there was instant silence.

“How long ago was it that he had left Acre?”

“It might be six months.”

“Had he heard of a young English knight, for whom all their hearts were very sore:  Sir Hubert of Walderne?”

“No, and yet if the knight had arrived at Acre he must have heard of it, for all travellers sought the hospitality of the brethren of Saint John, with whom he lived for six months as a serving brother, waiting upon their guests.”

Dead silence.  After a while the lady spoke.

“And had he not heard of the arrival of a vessel from Marseilles, called the Fleur de Lys?”

“Lady,” he replied, “the name brings a sad remembrance of my voyage homeward to my mind.  Off the coast of Sicily is a mighty whirlpool, which men call Charybdis, where Aeneas of old narrowly escaped shipwreck.  When the tide goes down the whirlpool belches forth the fragments of ships which have been sucked down, and when it returns the abyss again absorbs them.

“Here, then, I stood one day, for we had landed at Syracuse, on the rocks which commanded the swelling main, and at high tide I saw the hideous wreckage flow forth from the dark prison.  One portion, a figurehead, came near me in its gyrations.  It was the carved figure of the Fleur de Lys.”

“And you know no more?”

“Only that the natives said a French vessel of that name had been vainly striving, on a stormy day, to pass safely through the straits, and evade the power of the Charybdis; that she was drawn in, and that every soul perished.”

A sudden tumult:  Lady Sybil had fainted, and was conveyed to her chamber.

From that day the health and spirits of the Lady of Walderne sank into a state which gave great anxiety to her maidens and retainers; she was not indeed very old in years, but still no longer did she possess the elasticity of youth.  All her thoughts were absorbed by religion.  She heard mass daily, and went through all the formal routine the customs of her age prescribed; went occasionally to the shrine of Saint Dunstan at Mayfield, and to sundry holy wells, notably that one in the glen near Hastings, well known to modern holiday makers.  But while she was thus striving to work out her own salvation she knew little of the vital power of religion.  It was the mere formal fulfilment of duty, not the spontaneous offering of love; and her burdened and anxious spirit never found rest.

Yet had she not herself built a chapel, and given nearly the half of her goods to the poor, like Zaccheus of old?  While, unlike him, she had never wronged any to whom she might restore fourfold.  Well, like those of Cornelius, her prayers and alms had gone up before God and brought a Peter.