Yes, she had that advantage; rank was hers, but not the graces which should accompany it.  More than that, she had nothing with which to support it.  Better be of the yeoman class like Ermentrude, and smile like a duchess granting favors.  Or so she thought, poor girl, as her meek regard passed from the friend whose attractions she had thus acknowledged to the man whose approbation would make a goddess of her too.

He was coming—­not with his usual indifferent swing, but eagerly, joyously, as though this moment meant something to him too.  She knew it did.  Small memories rushing upon her, made no doubt of that.  But why?  Because of Ermentrude or because of herself?  Alas! she could recall nothing which would answer that.  They were much together; he had scarcely ever seen them separate.  It might be either——­Hardly alive from suspense, she watched him coming—­coming.  In a moment he would be upon them.  On which would his eyes linger?

That would tell the tale.

In an anguish of ungovernable shyness, she slipped behind the ample figure of her friend till only her fluttering skirt betrayed her presence.  Perhaps she was saved something by this move; perhaps not.  She did not see the beam of joy sparkling in his eye as he greeted Ermentrude; but she could not but mark the heaviness of his step as he passed them by and wandered away into the shadows.

And that she understood.  Ermentrude had not smiled upon him.  To him, the moment had brought pain.

It was enough.  Now she knew.

But why had not Ermentrude smiled?

* * * * *

A dormitory lighted only by the moon!  Two beds close together; in one a form of noble proportions, and in the other the meagre figure of a girl almost buried from sight among pillows and huddled-up blankets.  Both are quiet save for an occasional shudder which shakes the bed of the latter.  Ermentrude lies like the dead, though the moonlight falls full upon her face blanching it to the aspect of marble.  Even her lashes rest moveless on her cheek.

But she is not sleeping; she is listening—­listening to the sobs, almost inaudible, which now and then escape from the beloved one at her side.  As they grow fainter and fainter and gradually die away altogether till stillness reigns through the whole dormitory, she rouses and bending forward on her elbow, looks long and lovingly at the wet brow of her sleeping mate.  She then sinks back again into rigidity, with a low moan, ending in the whispered words: 

“He does not love,—­not yet.  A slight thing will turn him.  Did I not see him glance back twice, and both times at her?  The look with which she greeted him was so wonderful.”

* * * * *

A village street in Britanny; a parish church in the distance; two women bidding each other farewell amid a group of wedding-guests, gay as the heavens are blue.