The doves sate upon the window-ledge and lowly cooed and cooed

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"It was not murder," whispered Anne--"no, it was not." She lifted to her sister's gaze a quivering lip. "And yet once I had loved him--years I had loved him," she said, whispering still. "And in a woman there is ever somewhat that the mother creature feels"--the hand which held her sister's shook as with an ague, and her poor lip quivered--"Sister, I--saw him again!"

The duchess drew closer as she gasped, "Again!"

"I could not rest," the poor voice said. "He had been so base, he was so beautiful, and so unworthy love--and he was dead,--none knowing, untouched by any hand that even pitied him that he was so base a thing, for that indeed is piteous when death comes and none can be repentant. And he lay so hard, so hard upon the stones."

Her teeth were chattering, and with a breath drawn like a wild sob of terror, the duchess threw her arm about her and drew her nearer.

"Sweet Anne," she shuddered--"sweet Anne--come back--you wander!"

"Nay, 'tis not wandering," Anne said. "'Tis true, sister. There is no night these years gone by I have not remembered it again--and seen. In the night after that you bore him there--I prayed until the mid-hours, when all were sleeping fast--and then I stole down-- in my bare feet, that none could hear me--and at last I found my way in the black dark--feeling the walls until I reached that farthest door in the stone--and then I lighted my taper and oped it."

"Anne!" cried the duchess--"Anne, look through the tower window at the blueness of the sky--at the blueness, Anne!" But drops of cold water had started out and stood upon her brow.

"He lay there in his grave--it was a little black place with its stone walls--his fair locks were tumbled," Anne went on, whispering. "The spot was black upon his brow--and methought he had stopped mocking, and surely looked upon some great and awful thing which asked of him a question. I knelt, and laid his curls straight, and his hands, and tried to shut his eyes, but close they would not, but stared at that which questioned. And having loved him so, I kissed his poor cheek as his mother might have done, that he might not stand outside, having carried not one tender human thought with him. And, oh, I prayed, sister--I prayed for his poor soul with all my own. 'If there is one noble or gentle thing he has ever done through all his life,' I prayed, 'Jesus remember it--Christ do not forget.' We who are human do so few things that are noble--oh, surely one must count."

The duchess's head lay near her sister's breast, and she had fallen a-sobbing--a-sobbing and weeping like a young broken child.

"Oh, brave and noble, pitiful, strong, fair soul!" she cried. "As Christ loved you have loved, and He would hear your praying. Since you so pleaded, He would find one thing to hang His mercy on."

She lifted her fair, tear-streaming face, clasping her hands as one praying.