But a new voice broke in upon the railing of the hideous woman fiend.

“Out, foul hag!  Get you to your own place!” it said, with an accent strong and commanding.

And the affrighted and heart-sick girls turned them about to see the Lady Sybilla stand fair and pale at the head of the turret stair which opened out upon the roof of the White Tower.

At this interruption the eyes of La Meffraye seemed to burn with a fresher fury, and the green light in them shone as shines an emerald stone held up to the sun.

The hag cowered, however, before the outstretched index finger of Sybilla de Thouars.

“Ah, fair lady,” she whimpered, “be not angry—­and tell not my lord, I beseech you.  I did but jest.”

“Hence!” the finger was still outstretched, and, in obedience to the threatening gesture, the hag shrank away.  But as she passed through the portal down the steps of the turret, she flung back certain words with a defiant fleer.

“Ah, you are young, my lady, and for the present—­for the present your power is greater than mine.  But wait!  Your beauty will wither and grow old.  Your power will depart from you.  But La Meffraye can never grow older, and when once the secret is discovered, and my lord is young again, La Meffraye is the one who with him shall bloom with immortal youth, while you, proud lady, lie cold in the belly of the worm.”

* * * * *

“It is true—­all too true,” said Sybilla de Thouars, sadly, “they are dead.  The young, the noble were—­and are no more.  I who speak saw them die.  And that so greatly, that even in death their lives cease not.  Their glory shall flow on so that the young brook shall become a river, and the river become a sea.”

Then in few words and quiet, she told them all the heavy tale.

But when the maids made as though they would cleave to her for the sympathy that was in her words and because of her tears, she set the palms of her hands against their breasts and cried, “Come not near one whom not all the fires of purgatory can purify—­one who, like Iscariot, hath contracted herself outside the mercy of God and of our Lord Christ!”

But all the more they clave to her, overpassing her protestations and clasping her, so that, being deeply moved, she sat down on the steps of a corner turret which rose from the greater, and wept there, with the weeping wherewith women are wont to ease the heart.

Then went Maud Lindesay to her and set her hand about her neck, and kissed her, saying:  “Do not be sorry any more.  Confess to the minister of God.  I also have sinned and been sorry.  Yet after came forgiveness and the unbound heart.”

Then the Lady Sybilla ceased quickly and looked up, as it had been, smiling.  Yet she was not smiling as maidens are wont to smile.