Injustice

They bore her to her tower and laid her in her bed, when she looked once round the room and then at her sister.

"'Tis a fair, peaceful room," she said. "And the prayers I have prayed in it have been answered. To-day I saw my mother, and she told me so."

"Anne! Anne!" cried her Grace, leaning over her and gazing fearfully into her face; for though her words sounded like delirium, her look had no wildness in it. And yet--"Anne, Anne! you wander, love," the duchess cried.

Anne smiled a strange, sweet smile. "Perchance I do," she said. "I know not truly, but I am very happy. She said that all was over, and that I had not done wrong. She had a fair, young face, with eyes that seemed to have looked always at the stars of heaven. She said I had done no wrong."

The duchess's face laid itself down upon the pillow, a river of clear tears running down her cheeks.

"Wrong!" she said--"you! dear one--woman of Christ's heart, if ever lived one. You were so weak and I so strong, and yet as I look back it seems that all of good that made me worthy to be wife and mother I learned from your simplicity."

Through the tower window and the ivy closing round it, the blueness of the summer sky was heavenly fair; soft, and light white clouds floated across the clearness of its sapphire. On this Anne's eyes were fixed with an uplifted tenderness until she broke her silence.

"Soon I shall be away," she said. "Soon all will be left behind. And I would tell you that my prayers were answered--and so, sure, yours will be."